what’s in a name?

Civil War street names, Evanston, Illinois

In the south end of Evanston, Lee Street comes to an abrupt dead-end at Sherman Avenue. Appropriately, it was Sherman whose scorched earth “March to the Sea” was the beginning of the dead-end of any hope for General Lee’s confederate army in the U.S. Civil War. Not to be forgotten up on the north end of town, General Grant and President Lincoln are duly honored with dignified tree-lined streets.

Our city’s original street names – in addition to the customary Main and Central – commemorate war heroes, local founders of the city, landowners and several varieties of trees. Some American cities and suburbs get more creative: I used to live in University City, (the location of Washington University) just west of St. Louis. University City’s founder had big dreams of creating a utopian place of learning and named every street after an American college or university.

What goes into naming a place? Who gets to decide? What was the original meaning and what does it mean now? 

Disarray in D.C.

The Capitol, 1861

While I watch Congress crumbling in disarray over the debt ceiling crisis, I’m finding it helpful to ditch the present and look back 150 years and think of how close the country came to being truly split apart. A bit of perspective. I mean, what’s a little political dysfunction compared to our nation’s capitol full of soldiers, spies and discontents? OK, there are still soldiers, spies and discontents – and lobbyists. But after 1st Bull Run there was the frighteningly real questioning about whether the country would remain the United States. 

150 years ago today

It is way far past hot. My kitchen window thermometer, in the shade, reads 97. The  ”heat index” is 110. Out of curiosity, I checked Weather.com for the Manassas National Battlefield Park and it’s 99 there today – real temp, not heat indexed.

There was no weather.com 150 years ago, but you can bet that Patrick Farrelly – my great-grandfather – felt the heat. The 35,000 Union forces under McDowell had been marching for three days moving toward Manassas. They lumbered over unfamiliar land, making wrong turns at times, stopping too often. The force was largely made up of fresh volunteers, gung-ho for their first battle, but undisciplined and untried. It was amplified by a smaller band of US Regulars under the command of George Sykes, which included Patrick’s company, 2nd infantry, Co. C. They’d been called to Washington by President Lincoln in the late spring of 1861 – the 2nd, Companies C and K were closest to the east, stationed at Fort Ripley, Minnesota, where things were relatively quiet. To get there, they traveled by boat down the Mississippi river to Cairo, IL, then up the Ohio river, eventually landing in Pittsburg and traveling the remaining 300+ miles on foot to Washington. Marching for days was nothing new to them.

Most of the non-commissioned US Regular Army in 1861 were immigrants – Irish, English and German. They’d joined for a variety of reasons, just as immigrant recruits do today. It was a steady job when jobs were hard to come by, it was a way to show you were a real American, and there was some hope of a faster track toward citizenship. They put up with a lot and they were proud of that. They spent endless hours drilling, polishing, drilling, polishing, drilling, drilling, drilling…

Bull Run: looking out from Matthews Hill

Now they were in Virginia, marching away from the Capitol and this was the real thing. Or promised to be. It would be a short battle, a short war, their generals had assured them.