Thomas Fleming
Thomas Fleming is president of the Fleming Foundation. He is the author of six books, including The Morality of Everyday Life and The Politics of Human Nature, as well as many articles and columns for newspapers, magazines,and learned journals. He holds a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a B.A. in Greek from the College of Charleston. He served as editor of Chronicles: a Magazine of American Culture from 1984 to 2015 and president of The Rockford Institute from 1997-2014. In a previous life he taught classics at several colleges and served as a school headmaster in South Carolina
The Hickok gunfight was in Springfield MO. There are plaques on the square where Wild Bill and his opponent stood during the confrontation.
Richard Aldington wrote an excellent life of Wellington, one of the really great men. In his old age Queen Victoria asked him what she could do about the problem of sparrows getting into the Crystal Palace housing the Great Exhibition. His answer: “Try sparrow-hawks, Mum.” At Waterloo he and his staff were in the front lines throughout the battle. They were all wounded except him. His aide Lord Anglesey grunted, “They’ve got me!” “Have they, by God,” said Wellington. Angelsey survived the amputation of his leg behind the battlefield, afterwards went back with his friends to the place where he was wounded, ceremonially buried his leg, and went on to live a long life notable for contributions to the improvement of artificial limbs. These were exceptionally tough characters. Incidentally, it was under Wellington as prime minister that Parliament finally passed the Catholic Emancipation bill in 1829.
Professor Brownlow,
While looking up Aldington’s biography of Wellington, I discovered that Aldington also translated Boccaccio’s Decameron. He also did a translation of “The Treason of the Intellectuals” by Julien Benda. From a review of this book, it looks like something worthy to be read and studied. This man Aldington was quite productive, producing a great many works, and was apparently someone to take seriously. Thanks for bring him up in the conversation.
I remember that as a child in rural Arkansas, Wellington and Nelson were considered great heroes, and I remember being offended when first hearing someone on a TV talk show bring up Nelson’s bombardment of Copenhagen. Of course it turns out that the case was different from the way it was described. Then, there is Captain Bligh, who needs some rehabilitation, since, as sensible people know, he was actually the good guy in the mutiny on the Bounty, and was another quite admirable man.