7 thoughts on ““Miscellanous [Faux] Americana (Part II) — John Merryman: Time Traveller””

  1. “during the April riots.”

    We saw the same thing in Illinois with Confederate sympathizers and guerrillas fighting an open insurgency. The entire southern part of the state and most of Missouri were hostile territory (it still is in many ways), and Union troops garrisoned across the state line in Terre Haute were regularly sent in to suppress rebellion, often defying court orders. All throughout the war there were dueling decrees between military tribunals and Democratic judges. The courts in Southern Illinois were openly supportive of the insurgents, especially after 1863 when the legislature was dissolved for three years.

  2. Another habeas corpus case has made the news recently

    http://www.crimeandconsequences.com/crimblog/2016/01/an-nyt-hatchet-job-on-ted-cruz.html

    with David Brooks recent hit piece comparing Ted Cruz to Pharisees and pagans and Lord knows what else. It’s an interesting, complicated case. Cruz was arguing the federal district court shouldn’t be able to override the circuit court in certain obscure circumstances of the law

    https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/541/386/

  5. When the war started, operation of the telegraph was nationalized and placed under the control of the War Department. Cutting telegraph lines constituted an act of war, and it was a favored tactic used be advance Confederate forces during Lee’s Antietam Campaign.

  6. “He also was not in the cavalry. He was not even in the army.”

    His wikipedia page says lieutenant in the Baltimore County Horse Guards. Must be a local militia.

    During the war it was usually irregular marauders and guerrillas tasked with cutting telegraph lines. The raids required attacking on horseback, so some might charitably characterize them as cavalry.

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