Adventures In Presenting-Iowa Edition With Notes on Traveling

Due to construction along the route I would be taking, I decided to leave a little earlier than normal.  And, of course, there were no delays whatsoever.  You know that if I had left at my normal time, I would have been sitting there motionless amongst angry motorists for 14 hours or something.  Isn't that the way things go?  So while sitting at the train station an hour early as opposed to my usual 30 minutes, I pulled out my phone to check my eticket for my room assignment.  I purchased the tickets back in February and couldn't remember.  All of a sudden, I felt all tingly, a lump developed in my throat, and my ears began to burn.  The date of the ticket was for the following day!  #%&#($*&#(&*#@@!!!!!   I kept looking back and forth between the date on the ticket and the date on the calendar as if that would magically morph them into one and the same.

The Birth of Freedom.....Literally

The birth of freedom of this country takes on many forms.  Boston Harbor and the fields of Concord are easily recognized and accepted.  But, for many women, that birth took place in the guise of men during the Civil War.  Indeed, these women seemed to have become "reborn" as they were free to  seize new opportunities previously closed to them.  While these women experienced a birth of freedom, some also experienced........the birth of children........while serving as soldiers.  So on this Mother's Day, I am going to share the brief stories of these extraordinary women.

The Images of Loreta Janeta Velazquez

Cuban-born Loreta Janeta Valezquez is only one of two women soldiers known to have published her memoirs.  Sarah Emma Edmonds was the other.  The Woman in Battle, Velazquez's narrative, appeared originally  in 1876 and details daring exploits of the lady lieutenant and double agent.   Some of her adventures were embellished.  Jubal Early condemned her as a liar.  James Longstreet, however, seemed to corroborate some of story at least in a letter he wrote in 1888 to a Miss Park in Massachusetts where he says that he met Valezquez in New Orleans after the war.  Even though he "...had not known of her in the ranks..." he was able to "...attest of points she gave for identification."  (Richard Hall, Women on the Civil War Battlefront, p. 311)  Furthermore, historians have been able to confirm at least part of her exploits through newspaper articles and documents in the national archives.  Edit to add:  William C. "Jack" Davis wrote a book about her called Inventing Loreta Velazquez (2016) in which he concluded that she was a hoaxer.  I found flaws in his research, and you can read my critical review of his book by clicking [HERE].