"It’s Just Not Done!"

On September 13, 1759, a British army under Maj. Gen. Sir James Wolfe landed near Quebec.  The French garrison, under Maj. Gen. Louis-Joseph de Montcalm marched out to meet the invaders, and a battle was fought on the Plains of Abraham, just outside the walls.  Both Montcalm, aged 47, and Wolfe, 32, were mortally wounded, the British general dying shortly after learning that his troops had won the day.

Five days later Quebec surrendered, one of the crowning triumphs of Britain’s “Year of Victories.”

Naturally, Wolfe was widely viewed as a great hero, tragically cut down in his prime at the moment of victory.  Many honors followed, and in 1770 the artist Benjamin West executed a painting of the general’s dying moments. 

When West’s “The Death of James Wolfe” was unveiled at the Royal Academy in 1771, it proved quite controversial.  Noted artist and critic Joshua Reynolds protested that the dying warrior should have been portrayed, not in his British uniform, but (as befitting the heroic theme) in the more appropriate Roman kit. King George III agreed and so refused to purchase the piece, which did not prevent it from ultimately being recognized as a great work of art and inspiringe a new realistic fashion in historical painting. 

Unanticipated Difficulties

In 1858 Napoleon III began to construct ironclad warships.  Naturally, Britain responded in kind, and promptly ordered a 9,200-ton iron-hulled frigate which entered service as HMS Warrior in 1861.  The world’s first completely iron ocean-going armored warship, Warrior served for many years until, long obsolete, she was relegated to a backwater and eventually forgotten.  But in 1979, her battered hulk was turned over to Britain’s Maritime Trust.

Restoration of Warrior required some eight years’ work, £8 million, and great difficulty.  Almost everything had to be reproduced, often using long-forgotten technologies.  But the Maritime Trust persisted, and today the wonderfully restored ship may be visited at the Royal Navy Dockyard in Portsmouth.

During the restoration, there were numerous frustrating problems, and occasionally some that were both exasperating and amusing.  The most notable of these was probably an incident that occurred as a consequence of restoring the ship’s main armament.

As built, Warrior had mounted ten Armstrong 7-inch, 110-pounder rifled breech-loading cannon.  No plans for these could be found, but by chance one of the original guns was preserved as a memorial at St. Helier in the Channel Islands.  The gun was carefully removed from its mounting, and in December of 1983 landed by ship at Hartlepool, England, where the restoration work was being done. 

But delivery of the gun hit a curious snag; Her Majesty’s Customs Service had to be convinced that the old weapon did not require a firearms import license. 

Abe Feeds the Kitty

President Lincoln was very fond of cats.  So much so that once while en route to a conference with General-in-Chief U.S. Grant and Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter, he picked up three stray kittens and took them into the meeting.  Grant’s aide Horace Porter reported that it was a "curious sight at an army headquarters, upon the eve of a great military crisis" to see the president "tenderly caressing three stray kittens” as he discussed strategy with his commanders. 

The President’s affection for cats once led to a minor tiff with Mrs. Lincoln, who was often unhappy about what she perceived to be his lack of appropriate dignity.

Reportedly, during dinner at the White House one evening, Lincoln used a gold fork from the presidential service to feed a cat named “Tabby.”

Mrs. Lincoln asked, perhaps rhetorically, “Don’t you think it’s shameful for Mr. Lincoln to feed Tabby with a gold fork?”

The President replied, “If the gold fork was good enough for former President James Buchanan, I think it is good enough for Tabby.”