With respect to connections: Patton's early childhood influence from the
frequent presence of John Singleton Mosby with the Patton family is
documented on page 40 of Carlo D'este's, near definitive; "Patton - A Genius
For War", Harper Collins; 1995.
"As for living heroes, George came to know a frequent guest of the Patton,
the infamous Col. John Singleton Mosby, the Confederate guerrilla
(pronounced correctly by using the Spanish "y" in place of the double "ll")
leader. A prewar lawyer who had learned the law in prison after being
expelled from the University of Virginia and imprisoned for killing another
student. Mosby had migrated to California to work for ht Southern Pacific
Railroad. Mosby delighted the impressionable young Georgie Patton with tales
of the Civil War, all of which the boy absorbed like a sponge."
"Thus, by the time he entered his teens, Patton had not only learned
firsthand of the heroics of the men of the Confederacy but had been
indoctrinated in the classics: Shakespeare, Homer, Sir Walter Scott, and
Kipling; books about heroes, kings, ..., and above all, to the great
soldiers of history: Caesar, Belisarus, Scipio, Hannibal, Napoleon, Joan of
Arc, and Joachim Murat. All engendered in Patton a sense that he was in this
life a reincarnation of soldiers of the past, that he had served in bygone
armies and fought in the famous battles of history."
I bring this to your attention for these two personal observations about
this report: (A) I found D'este's work to a "love story" from Patton's birth
to the outbreak of War World War II. I drew this to a point of my conclusion
from the post World War I singular episode where Beatrice knocked a full
Colonel to floor of a formal ballroom society affair and beat him repeatedly
until "Georgie" rescued the Colonel and pulled his wife (Beatrice was born
and bred high) from the poor wretch who made the mistake of making a
disparaging remark about her husband in her presence and not that of her
husband's; and, (B) the development of the character - Patton - by the
constant reference to those past heroes and his dedication to emulate their
virtues (sans "killer Mosby") as it apples to the following quote from the
motion picture; "HUD". Therein, the character grandfather, played by Melvyn
Douglas, tries to dissuade the younger brother from the nefarious attitude
of his older brother, HUD, with this: "Little by little, the look of the
country is changed by the men we admire."
A find a lot of history in that last line. Correctly or incorrectly, that's
what draws me to investigation of our past.
Regards, Ray
______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
|