October 2017 Volume 56, Issue 7 The Minuteman Central Florida SAR Chapter Chartered on May 8, 1961 Meeting Location: The Mayflower 1720 Mayflower Court Winter Park, FL 32792 Chapter Meeting October 14, 2017 At this meeting, our speaker will be Compatriot Randal Allen. His presentation will be on his patriot an- cestor who fought at the Battle of Cam- den located in South Carolina. This meeting will be held in the Duxbury Hall of the Mayflower Retire- ment Community Center located at 1620 Mayflower Court in Winter Park, Florida. A time of socializing will begin at 11:30 am with lunch being served at noon. The cost of the lunch is $18.00. The entrée choices are: BBQ Ribs, Chicken Fingers, Cape Capensis (Fish), or Salad Plate. Note that each meal comes with an assortment of veg- etables, starch, salad or soup, and a des- sert. Coffee and tea is also served with the meal. Please make your reservation to attend this meeting by 10/11/2017 by contacting Compatriot Dan Stebbins via phone at 407-830-6946 or via e-mail at [email protected]. Your partici- pation is greatly appreciated in re- sponding with your RSVP before the deadline date. Please plan to attend. Upcoming Meeting Programs The upcoming meeting programs that have been scheduled are as follows: November 11th - Colonel Bruce Johnson (US. Air Force Ret.) will give a presentation dedicated to Veterans. December 9th - Compatriot Jeff Sizemore will give a presentation titled: “Cumberland Island - A Story of Patriots, Strong Women, and Incredible Wealth.” January 13, 2018 - Compatriot Don Green will give an in-character presentation on Benjamin Franklin. If you are willing to give a presentation to the chapter or know someone to suggest that we invite to be our speaker, please let Com- patriot Maynard Pittendreigh know. Member Induction At the October meeting, the chapter will be inducting Bret Oetting into the NSSAR and into the Central Florida SAR Chapter. We will also be electing a Registrar for the chap- ter. Other new members to be inducted into our chapter at future meetings are: Charles Buckles, Philip Markoe, Ed McGlynn, Wil- son Warlick, Thomas Warlick, Jr., and Thomas Warlick, III Color Guard Update If anyone is interested in participating in the Color Guard, whether it is presenting the
Transcript
October 2017 Volume 56, Issue 7
The Minuteman
Central Florida
SAR Chapter
Chartered on
May 8, 1961
Meeting Location:
The Mayflower
1720 Mayflower
Court Winter Park, FL
32792
Chapter Meeting October 14, 2017
At this meeting, our speaker will be Compatriot Randal Allen. His presentation will be on his patriot an-cestor who fought at the Battle of Cam-den located in South Carolina. This meeting will be held in the Duxbury Hall of the Mayflower Retire-ment Community Center located at 1620 Mayflower Court in Winter Park, Florida. A time of socializing will begin at 11:30 am with lunch being served at noon. The cost of the lunch is $18.00. The entrée choices are: BBQ
The upcoming meeting programs that have been scheduled are as follows: November 11th - Colonel Bruce Johnson (US. Air Force Ret.) will give a presentation dedicated to Veterans. December 9th - Compatriot Jeff Sizemore will give a presentation titled: “Cumberland Island - A Story of Patriots, Strong Women, and Incredible Wealth.” January 13, 2018 - Compatriot Don Green will give an in-character presentation on Benjamin Franklin. If you are willing to give a presentation to the chapter or know someone to suggest that we invite to be our speaker, please let Com-patriot Maynard Pittendreigh know.
Member Induction At the October meeting, the chapter will be inducting Bret Oetting into the NSSAR and into the Central Florida SAR Chapter. We will also be electing a Registrar for the chap-ter. Other new members to be inducted into our chapter at future meetings are: Charles Buckles, Philip Markoe, Ed McGlynn, Wil-son Warlick, Thomas Warlick, Jr., and Thomas Warlick, III
Color Guard Update If anyone is interested in participating in the Color Guard, whether it is presenting the
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colors at the meeting, or participating at various public events, please let the chapter know. Note that several members will be meeting early at the September meeting to present the flags at the meet-ing. They will be gathering at the Mayflower at 10:00 AM.
Upcoming FLSSAR Board of Management Meeting
Fall 2017 FLSSAR Board of Management/Annual Meeting (November 3 - 5): This meeting will be held at the Embassy Suites Orlando/Lake Buena Vista South Hotel located at 4955 Kyngs Heath Rd in Kissimmee, Florida. To register to attend, refer to the registration form located on the last page of this newsletter.
Opportunities to Promote SAR
If you know of a neighborhood newspaper, blog, or other medians that the Central Florida SAR Chapter could promote upcoming meetings and events, please let the chapter know. We will need to know the publication name and contact. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.
Birthday Announcements
On behalf of the Central Florida SAR Chapter, we would like to wish the following individual a Hap-py and Enjoyable Birthday: OCTOBER 4 Wilson, Marshall 10 Smither, Janan 20 Coughlin, Linda 22 McElroy, Thomas 25 Smith, Karen 25 Sizemore, Joyce
The Chaplain’s Message
There are some, in this secular age in which we live, who question why our military would have chap-lains. Military chaplains have a long history. The Old Testament often refers to priests serving with troops going into battle. One refer-ence is from the Book of Deuteronomy 20:2-4: “Before you engage in battle, the priest shall come forward
and speak to the troops, and shall say to them: ‘Hear, O Israel! Today you are drawing near to do battle against your enemies. Do not lose heart, or be afraid, or panic, or be in dread of them; for it is the Lord your God who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to give you victory’.”
The term “chaplain” came from the French. During the Middle Ages, a sacred relic, the cloak of Saint Martin of Tours, was frequently carried into battle. Clergymen who served as custodians of this relic were called “capellanus” and eventually “chapelain.” This Old French term was borrowed into English. During the American Revolution-ary War, chaplains were often pastors who were on the battle field primarily to join in the
fighting. Many were described as having “a Bible in one hand and a musket in the other.”
One such individu-al was Samuel Doak, a Presbyterian pastor from East Tennessee. He joined the Overmountain Men of Tennessee who trekked to King’s Mountain, NC, to engage the British. Being a pastor, he was called upon to preach a sermon and to lead a prayer at the begin-ning of their journey into
battle. Doak’s prayer ended with the petition, “Help us
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as good soldiers to wield the sword of Gideon.” The soldiers responded with the chant, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.” This chant was repeated by many during the actual battle. Chaplains continued to provide spiritual and emotional support to American soldiers throughout our history. During World War II, the SS Dorchester was struck by a torpedo and sank off the coast of New-foundland. In an environment of panic, four chaplains helped calm the men, leading them to lifeboats. When the supply of life jackets were exhausted, the chaplains gave theirs to others and died as the ship went down. The four chaplains included a Rabbi, a Catholic Priest, and two Protestant pastors. Chaplains continue to serve in our nation’s military. They serve with honor, and in many cases, with heroic courage. W. Maynard Pittendreigh, Chaplain
Flag Award Certificate The Flag Award Certificate, authorized in 1987, is presented to individuals, companies and government agencies that fly the United States flag for patriotic purposes only. It is not to be given to any commercial enterprise that obviously flies it for advertising purposes. If you know of an individual or company whom you think the Central Florida SAR chapter should consider for this Flag Award Certificate, please inform Compatriot Burt Fairchild.
Columbus Day
This month, a holiday that some may cele-brate or other may recognize when they don’t re-ceive mail or find the banks closed is Columbus Day. Other countries also celebrate Columbus Day, but call it by other names. In Latin America coun-tries, it is known as the Day of the Race. Other cele-brations associated with Columbus Day are La Vir-gen del Pilar (Spain), the Day of the Americas (Belize, & Uraguay), the Day of Respect for Cultur-al Diversity (Argentina), and Giornata Nazionale di Cristo Columbo (Italy). In the United States we cel-ebrate Columbus Day as a holiday recognize the landing of Christopher Columbus in the Americas on October 12, 1492. Columbus Day first became an official state holiday in Colorado in autumn of 1905, and became a federal holiday in the United States in 1937, though people have celebrated Columbus's voyage since the colonial period. In 1792, New York City and other U.S. cities celebrated the 300th anniver-
sary of his landing in the New World. President Benja-min Harrison called upon the people of the United States to celebrate on the 400th anniversary of the event. During the anniversary in 1892, teachers, preachers, poets and politicians used rituals to teach ideals of patriotism. These rituals took themes such as citizenship boundaries, the importance of loyalty to the nation, and celebrating social progress. Since the 1970s, the United States has set aside the second Mon-day of the month of October as Columbus Day.
The Creation & Development of Gunpowder
by Terry Manning, Atlanta Chapter SAR Source: Jack Kelly, Gunpowder – Alchemy, Bombards, & Pyrotechnics: The History of the Explosive that Changed the World (Basic Books: New York, 2004) The history of gunpowder is a history of mis-takes, errors, enlightenment, and trial and error. Gunpow-der had its beginnings in Chi-na as man started experiment-ing with the science of chem-istry. Europeans had the op-portunity at the same time to have discovered gunpowder, but their study of chemistry in the sixth century was a quest for riches. Their dabbling in chemistry was directed to-ward alchemy, or the trans-formation of base metals into gold. The Chinese became involved in chemistry for an-other purpose: seeking an elixir of longevity to life – a chemical Fountain of Youth. The Chinese had come to recognize that swal-lowing certain herbal concoctions or drinking certain liquid potions had an effect on their health, such as curing an upset stomach or removing a headache. Why couldn’t the right combination of natural ingredi-ents prolong their life? The man who could discover such an elixir would be wealthy beyond his dreams and live perhaps forever. This dream drove thousands of men and women to dabble in the art of chemistry. This process of their mixing hundreds of combinations of materials together ultimately led to many discover-ies. None of them gave everlasting life, but one of them became the object of shortening thousands of
lives: gunpowder. Probably the earliest documentation of a form of gunpowder comes from a book dated 850 A.D. The book debunked 35 elixirs proposed to increase lon-gevity, noting that one of them which combined salt-peter, sulfur, and dried honey (a source of carbon), when heated resulted in smoke and flames that burnt a house down. The basic formula for gunpowder had been discovered, but the enormity of the find and the mysterious complexity of this substance meant that it was 200 years before this explosive material was de-veloped into the effective use of gunpowder (1044 A.D. during the Sung dynasty). It was natural that the main ingredient for gunpowder would find its way into hundreds of at-tempts to find an elixir of youth. The ready availabil-ity of saltpeter as a white crust on certain soils in Chi-na led to years of experimentation with it. Cooks were after all, using it as a flavoring like other salts. But they found that at high temperatures (335 degrees
+) the normally stable saltpe-ter flared up or exploded. Eventually, gunpowder, or “fire drug” as the Chinese called it, was found to re-quire saltpeter to make up ¾ of its volume to be effective. Lesser amounts burnt, but did not explode. The fiery potential of sulfur (which makes up about 10% of gunpowder) which exists in a pure state in na-ture, combined with charcoal (15% of gunpowder) (created
from wood burnt in an oxygen deprived environment) provides the fuel needed to mix with saltpeter to cre-ate gunpowder. Who knows what kitchen or laborato-ry accident might have made it clear to its discoverer that these combined items might have a value. Sulfur reacts first to the introduction of heat from a spark or flame, igniting at a relatively low tem-perature (261 degrees centigrade). Its burning gener-ates additional heat that ignites the charcoal and shat-ters the saltpeter. The oxygen stored in the saltpeter is released, igniting more fuel. The charcoal, burning at a higher temperature than the sulfur, accelerates the process further. The resultant gases expand enor-mously, giving the gunpowder its blast effect. Thus, ignition translates gunpowder’s stored chemical ener-
gy into the thermal energy of flame and the mechani-cal energy of compressed gases. As these concoctions of chemicals came to create smoke, flames, and/or explosions it became clear that containers of some sort were needed to di-rect that energy and put it to work. Fireworks were the first expression of this concept. Four basic forms of containment outline the uses of gunpowder to our present time: 1. Enclosure in a sealed container with a fuse, blows the container apart like a firecracker or bomb. The tougher the container, the more violent the explosion. 2. Enclosure in a tube with an open end projects the combustible products to fly out in a fiery spray for pyrotechnic displays. 3. If the open-ended tube is not fixed in place, the force of the escaping gases drives the container in the op-posite direction to form a rocket (discovered accidentally about 1264 AD). 4. Placing an item in the open-ended tube on top of the powder, almost filling the width of the opening with it, creates a projectile that bursts out at a high speed when the exploding gases escape. Ultimately, by 1127 A.D. the Chinese were using explosive paper bombs to create noise and con-fusion among their enemies. It was another hundred years before an increased volume of saltpeter came in use rich enough to explode metal casings (1231 A.D.). The earliest widespread military use of “fire drug” by 1083 was as an attachment to fire arrows and as fire producing incendiaries delivered by catapults. The success of these weapons led quickly to a ban on the export of saltpeter and sulfur by the Chinese. Gun-powder became a Chinese monopoly. These [air quotes] “Heaven-Shaking Thunder Crash Bombs” could be heard 33 miles distant and scorch an area 40 yards square. In conjunction with flying-fire spears (a 2-foot tube of gunpowder at-tached to a long spear), they were in use against the invading armies of the son of Genghis-Kahn in North-ern China. Of course, a variety of bombs quickly fol-lowed. While the fire and flames created by gunpow-der were of primary interest initially, the use of small metal and ceramic debris in some bombs and fire lanc-
es and the development of rockets (mid 1200 A.D.) led to the concept of the gun. Firing a projectile(s) became more important than spitting flames. Fire lances replaced their bamboo tubes with metal tubes in order to use a more powerful powder. As these became larger, one man couldn’t handle them, and they attached them to frames or wheels, and became known as erupters, firing bun-dles of arrows or metal balls at a time. The Chinese discovered that the closer a projectile filled the opening of a barrel, the more forcefully it left the barrel. Thicker barrels allowed use of stronger gunpowder charges.
The history of hand guns is a long story in itself but the earliest guns in China (while under Mongol control) appeared in the late 1200s. By the mid 1300s, cannons and hand held guns were common in warfare within China as the Mongols and Chinese fought for control. A bronze, hand cannon from 1332 is only a foot long and weighs 8
pounds. Stone and metal balls were fired by it. China could not for long hold a monopoly over the use of gunpowder. By the mid 1200s knowledge of gunpowder was documented in Eu-rope and other parts of Asia. 1331 A.D. was the date of first military use in Europe. King Edward III of England was the first to use it as one of his major weapon sources in a major battle in 1346 against King Phillip in France where he was greatly out numbered. It was so effective, that the race was on in Europe to adapt it somehow into modern warfare, although exactly how to make best use of it with existing weapons and military strategy was not clear. By 1412 a 3-foot cannon using a half pound of powder could fire a 2-inch ball at high velocity or a bag of half-inch lead pellets. The problem in making gunpowder in Eu-rope was finding natural sources of saltpeter. By the late 1300s, they discovered ways of creating it artifi-cially. One recipe in 1561 mixed human feces, urine, horse dung, and lime – all of it sheltered from rain and turned regularly for a year. A hundred pounds of scraping yielded only a half pound of salt-
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mile and imbed itself 6 feet into the ground. Gunpowder by the ton was required. It took hours to load the cannon, limiting it to seven shots a day. Any error in packing gunpowder too loosely or tightly, in the mixing of the ingredients, in humidity, and other factors could create a fizzle and not a boom, or an explosion too powerful for a cannon to handle without blowing itself up and everyone around it! In May 1453, the impossible happened. Fol-lowing a 6-week siege, Constantinople fell, shocking the Christian world, as it was common knowledge that the double walled castle was impregnable, hav-ing repulsed dozens of sieges in its history. Gun-powder was changing the world! Over the next couple hundred years, gun-powder and cannon manufacture took on dozens of changes through trial and error and engineering and scientific study. Even the most minute variation could spell success or disaster. Scottish King James II found this out the hard way when he was killed when a powder chamber exploded accidentally. The precise mixing of gunpowder was no less problemat-ic than the casting of weapons and methods of ignit-ing the gunpowder properly in cannons and guns. The wrong mixture of metals or the wrong tempera-ture used in cooling the metals in a cannon’s manu-facture could mean success or failure. The development of the handgun and the advancement of various bombs and shells are in themselves another story covering many years with as many complications as the development of gun-powder, but the basic cannon (developed by 1500 A.D.) was still in use during the American Civil War, almost 300 years later. In summary, “fire drug” or gunpowder, com-prised of a few simple chemicals, confounded the world’s military establishment for centuries, continu-ally upending the status quo with each new discovery and improvement, and creating with each new devel-opment the next super power, changing world history forever, not with a bang but with a boom!
peter. A whole new industry of saltpeter plantations was born. Some theorize that the expense of this new mili-tary tactic led to the heavier taxes that so often provoked one’s population into revolt. In spite of the cost and effort required to create gunpowder, its effective use in military engagements could not be ignored. Joan of Arc is said to have used it more effectively than others of her time because she was not encumbered by the experience of traditional warfare tactics. New to warfare, but with a natural sense of tac-tics, she recognized the real value of its use was not as a scare tactic and as a result led the removal of the English
from power in France in the early 1400s with great reli-ance on the use of gunpowder. This unique victory was followed by the fall of Constantinople in the East when the Turkish sultan Mehmed II recognized the genius of a Hungarian named Urban, one of the most skilled gunpowder technicians and metallurgists of the time, who creatd the largest can-non of its time – 26 feet long and able to fire a half-ton stone ball (an amazing engineering feat for its time). Fifty oxen were needed to move the cannon and 700 men were assigned to its crew. The stone would travel a
