Grant's One Regret, Justice Cheney's One Life

Justice (or Justus) Cheney
DOB: May 11, 1835, Hopkinton, NY
D: June 3, 1864, Cold Harbor, VA
Relation to Author: 2nd Great Grand Uncle
Brother of 2nd great grandfather, Jesse Cheney

In a previous post I noted that Grant said his one regret was the early assault at Cold Harbor. I also said that Justice Cheney was wounded at Cold Harbor and died from his wounds. What wasn't clear at the time was whether Justice was part of that attack. I now know that in fact he was - and at the very front.

In this diagram, from Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26-June 3, 1864 by Gordon C. Rhea, we see only the forces that were part of the early morning June 3rd attack. And if you look closely, you can see "7NYHA" out in front of all others on the Union side (right). That is Justice's regiment - the Seventh New York Heavy Artillery.

Just let that sink in. Justice Cheney, the author's 2nd Great Grand Uncle, was in the regiment in the very front of the attack that lost so many lives and years later would be Grant's one regret. And this wasn't a grizzled veteran; he had joined the regiment just one month earlier.


I plan to read Rhea's book (he is considered the preeminent historian on Grant's Overland campaign and therefore the book the authoritative account of Cold Harbor). I have seen enough on Google books to know that there is good information on the Seventh NY Heavy Artillery. I will summarize in future posts.

She was WAC

Catherine (Kay) Leary
Born: 10/7/1907, North Lawrence, NY
Died: 2/29/1988, North Lawrence, NY
Relation to Author: Grand Aunt (mother’s side)
Sister to Helen Keenan (nee: Leary)

Over 150,000 American women served in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) during World War II. Members of the WAC were the first women other than nurses to serve within the ranks of the United States Army.*

Before starting this project, I knew very little about Catherine Leary beyond fuzzy but happy memories of games of Go-Fish with Aunt Kay-Kay. I may have remembered that she had been a teacher, but I certainly did not know that she had served in the Women’s Army Corps.

As America prepared for World War II, leaders in government debated about how women could best aide the war effort. During World War I, women supported the effort overseas - mostly as nurses. Many complained though that women lacked official status and therefore basic protections afforded to men working overseas; women had to secure their own quarters, were not afforded legal protection or medical care, and upon returning home received no disability benefits or pension.

Unfortunately, when Congress passed a bill creating a role for women in World War II - the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) - it did not afford women legal protection, benefits, or overseas pay. And it created the Corps as a separate entity to work with the army. Even this bill was controversial though, stirring debate about whether women should be encouraged to leave the home. The bill easily passed in the House but received a close vote in the Senate (38-27). The bill was signed into law in May of 1942.

But as the war progressed, the role of women and the WAAC would change and women would receive the protections they sought. Legislation would change the WAAC to the WAC - from a separate unit to work with the Army, to a unit of reserve forces and part of the Army of the United States (AUS) in July of 1943, to a part of the United States Army in 1946. The WAC lasted until 1978 when it was finally disbanded and women entered basic training with men.

Catherine Leary joined the effort on March 20, 1943, just before legislation changing the WAAC to the WAC. All WAAC women were given the option of transitioning to WAC or leaving. While 25 percent returned home, Kay and a very many others stayed on.

Kay joined at the age of 35. By that time, she had a Masters degree and had been a teacher for 13 years. This made her significantly older than the average WAC volunteer who was 25 years old, but more educated since most had high school diplomas (most of the first officers were college educated). As many women, especially the most educated, were teachers at the time, this was one of the groups the WAC sought to recruit from.

Originally, the roles for women were mostly clerical, but would expand to include a list almost too long to name but included, “weather observers and forecasters, cryptographers, radio operators and repairmen, sheet metal workers, parachute riggers, link trainer instructors, bombsight maintenance specialists, aerial photograph analysts, and control tower operators,” to name a few. They also served in most theatres, including “North Africa, the Mediterranean, Europe, the Southwest Pacific, China, India, Burma, and the Middle East.”

In later posts, we’ll hope to explore Kay’s actual roles in the WAC (through oral history and personnel records) as well as where she served.

Sources:
*THE WOMEN'S ARMY CORPS: A COMMEMORATION OF WORLD WAR II SERVICE, By Judith A. Bellafaire, CMH Publication 72-15. http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/wac/wac.htm

Picatinny: Family Job Machine

Margaret Paulus (nee Williams) b. 1887; d. 1972
Russel Shultz b. 1909; d. 2007
Edna Shultz (nee Paulus) b.1911; d. 1995
Frederick Paulus, Jr. b.1913 d. 1984
Margaret Paulus (nee Webber) b. 1915; d. 2002
Alvin Paulus b. 1915 d. 1995
Bruce Cheney b. 1917
Elizabeth Cheney (nee Paulus) b. 1919; d. 2009


What do the above 8 people have in common? Besides being family, they all worked at Picatinny Arsenal in Morris County, New Jersey. Of the Paulus family - parents (Margaret and Friedrich) and their four children and their spouses - only two did not work at Picatinny Arsenal (Friedrich Paulus; and Lee Paulus, nee Vanoli - married to Alvin Paulus).

Picatinny Arsenal, founded in 1880 as a powder depot (starting in 1749 it was used as a forge and during the Revolutionary War was manned by Hessian prisoners and served the Continental Army), the Arsenal would become a major location for munitions storage, production, development, and training. During its height in World War II, when my ancestors worked there, the arsenal employed 20,000 people.

You'll notice that 4 of the above mentioned are women, and Picatinny hired 10,000 women. In fact, it was one of the first plants to use women for tasks such as, "machine operators, smokeless powder workers and carpenters."

While ultimately the work would prove safe, the explosion of 1926, which killed 19 people, injured 38 others, and destroyed all buildings within 3,000 feet, must have made workers 15 years later a little nervous.

The explosion was caused by a lightning strike to one of the magazines that stored 670,000 pounds of munition which then caused a second magazine with 1,600,000 pounds of TNT to explode. Damage was estimated at $1,265,000 and the WPA would spend $2,953,920 to rebuild during the 1930s. Congress would authorize another $8 million during World War II and in 1945 another $7 million.

In future posts we'll learn what our relatives did at the Arsenal, starting with the matriarch, Margaret Paulus (nee Williams). And we'll see that some worked there longer than others.

Sources:
Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey; Images of America Series. by John W. Rae, Aracdia Publishing, Charleston, SC. 1999.

A Marriage in World War II?

Bruce Judson Cheney
Born: October 28, 1917, Dover, New Jersey
Relation to Author: Grandfather

Elizabeth (Betty) Charlotte Paulus
Born: November 23, 1919
Died: December 16, 2009, Randolph, New Jersey
Relation to Author: Grandmother

Marriage: May 23, 1943

This won't be a long post. I just find it interesting to know that Betty Paulus and Bruce Cheney (aka Nana and PopPop) were married during World War II. As my very smart wife says, life goes on. And that is good to know.

It is good to know that people were still getting married despite the uncertainty of the war at that time - the allied invasion of France (D-Day) was one year away and in the Pacific the battle of Midway, a turning point, was one year passed but getting to victory against Japan was a long and hard two years away.

While one might say that American civilian and military deaths were far less than European and Asian countries, it still must have been a trying time. I'm glad there was still time for those at home to live their lives.

I expect to spend a good deal of time on World War II, since it directly impacted many of our ancestors. In future posts, I'll look to learn and write about the people that stayed home and those that served and what their world was like.

Trusting in God Persevere

I bought a key chain in Belfast (which I still use) with the Keenan coat of arms. It says the following on the back about the origins of the name Keenan:

This is the anglicised version of the Gaelic MacFhionnain meaning "son of Fhionnain" from "Fionn" meaning "fair". The census of 1659 lists the variant MacKeenan as a principla name in the barony of Ardee, Co. Louth. Some were historians to the MacGuires of Fermanagh between 1345 and 1508. The motto for Keenan is "Trusting in God persevere".

I don't know much faith to put in this, since it is a key chain from a tourist spot in Belfast (where we found info on a fantastic black cab tour). But then again, it does seem to track pretty closely to something else my uncle found. And I like the idea that we were historians.

Hail to the Chief - the Physician-in-Chief

Francis Gilman Blake
Born: February 22, 1887, Mansfield Valley, Pennsylvania
Died: February 1, 1952, Washington, DC
Relation to Author: Great Grandfather In-Law

Learning about an ancestor - or in this case your wife's ancestor - is made much easier when someone else has already done the research and synthesized it for you. Such is the case with Francis Gilman Blake. So esteemed was he that the National Academy of Sciences published a "biographical memoir" of Dr. Blake (available here to download as a pdf). After reading it, I understand why.

His curriculum vitae is almost three pages long, but here are some of the highlights:
- 1913 M.D. Harvard Medical School
- 1918-1919 World War I, Active Duty - Pneumonia Commission
- 1921-1951 Chairman, Department of Internal Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine
- 1941-1947 Dean, Yale University School of Medicine
- 1941-1946 Consultant to the Secretary of War and President of the Board for the Investigation and Control of Influenza and other Epidemic Diseases
- 1943 World War II expedition to New Guinea to study scrub typhus fever
- 1946 Awarded United States of America Medal for Merit, the highest civilian honor, for work on scrub typhus fever

Although all the accolades and achievements listed above are amazing, the real beauty of the biography is how much we can learn about Dr. Blake as a person (information I lack when looking at most other ancestors). The author says Dr. Blake was a very talented clinician, clinical investigator, teacher and administrator. The memoir gives examples of how he excelled in each of these areas and I plan to explore that more in another post.

As I am undertaking this genealogical research, I see that there are a few different categories of historical individuals. First, there are the many people that participate and make their small but meaningful contributions to their world. Second, there are the very few that receive recognition (fairly or not) for major impacts on their world. Finally, there are those that make a major impact on their world but receive less recognition. Dr. Blake falls into this last category.

In future posts, I will explore Dr. Blake's abilities as a teacher, administrator and clinician. I will also delve into his role during the Pandemic Influenza of 1919 and his role in the overall expansion of our knowledge of infectious diseases.

It's Not What You Think

John Keenan
Born: 1784, Cross Keys, Country Antrim, Ireland
Died: 1871, Hogansburg, St. Lawrence County, New York, USA
Relationship to the author: 3rd great grandfather

The Keenans – the author’s maternal grandfather's line – came to America in 1821 from County Antrim in Northern Ireland. As this is 20 years before the potato famine, it begs the question as to why they made the trip when they did.

If we look at Irish history – particularly history of Ireland in the north (Ulster) – we know that much of the legal discrimination against Irish Catholics was in the past by 1821. The laws that punished Irish Catholics from the early 1700s (the Act of Settlement, the Penal Laws, and Preventing Growth of the Popery) were reversed in the late 1700s (Catholic Relief Acts). Although there was still not full political participation, things seemed to be looking up.

In addition, there was no major violence to speak of right around that time. There was violence aplenty in the 1600s as Britain fought to bring all of Ireland under control and after as Ireland tried to free itself, culminating in The Battle of the Boyne (1690), but that is well behind them. The rebellion of 1798 by Lord Edward Fitzgerald in Dublin had an parallel effort in County Antrim led by Henry Jo McCracken. Both rebellions were defeated and left 30,000 dead. But that was 20 years prior to John Keenan and family leaving Ireland.

If we accept that it wasn’t discrimination or war, then what was it?

Emigration to the United States around 1820 was light compared to what it would be during and after the potato famine. In 1821 only 1,518 Irish left for the United States. Although that number would have an annual peak in the 1820s of over 12,000 (1828), this pales in comparison to the more than 37,000 that would leave Ireland in 1841 or the 221,000 in 1851.

So what led the family to leave with such a small number of Irish that year? The best bet is the search for more farmland. Ireland was seeing rapid population growth starting in 1770 of roughly 12 percent per decade. This was putting a strain on the limited land available. For the first fifteen years of the 19th century, farmers could divide land to their heirs without losing money as the Napoleonic Wars kept demand for grains high which lead to steadily increasing prices. When the Napoleonic Wars ended, prices stagnated or fell. This meant parents could not divide their land among their children and might find it hard to survive on the land they currently had.

America on the other hand had plenty of land in 1820. It won a war of independence then survived some growing pains by enacting a new Constitution (1787), bought land from Napoleon to expand west of the Mississippi River (1803), and fought a second war with Britain (War of 1812) whereby they maintained independence and pre-war borders. In 1820, America was settling down and there was no obvious violence expected in the immediate future (and as we know nothing would happen until 1860).

With land disappearing in Ireland and opening up in America, it makes sense that some Irish decided to emigrate. It is interesting to think that our ancestors were part of that small group (50,000 total during the 1820s) that left before things would get really bad.

In future posts, we’ll spend some more time looking at life in Northern Ireland before the Keenans left. We can look more at Elizabeth’s armies conquering Ireland, King James’ actions following that, and the hated Oliver Cromwell. We’ll also look at the Keenans’ life in New York after their arrival.