War name - war games?

Once again, an article has been published belittling my research.

I will dissect it line by line hoping to make clarifications not afforded by the writer.

War Name by Adam Fagin.

Under the category of "Creative Nonfiction".  (see the top of the page in the link)  Is this an oxymoron? "Creative fact" - creative meaning one can take liberties with the facts? So thus it is not fact, but fiction?  From wikipedia:  "Ultimately, the primary goal of the creative nonfiction writer is to communicate information, just like a reporter, but to shape it in a way that reads like fiction."

Thus, Fagin's article is merely fiction based on fact.

Before I start, a bit of "history" between myself and Fagin.  He first emailed me on Sep 30, 2015:

My name is Adam Fagin. I'm a PhD student in Creative Writing at the University of Denver, and I'm working with Jeanne Abrams, who gave me your email address, to research the Cotopaxi settlement. I am hoping to write about the colony, but I've found that there's a dearth of primary sources related to the settlers and what transpired. It's these primary sources that I'm most interested in for my project, and I was wondering if, perhaps, you'd been able to find any additional documents. I'd also appreciate any leads or suggestions for tracking these sorts of documents down that you might have.

I received this email after Miles Saltiel had posted his bounty the first time around.  So my presumption was that this was a student wanting copies of my research in order to submit them to Miles to obtain money.....for work that I had done.

Here's what I emailed back:

 I am not sure that the Cotopaxi Colony is a topic for a creative writing class. It is a very serious historical study that will take quite some time to finalize its research.  Trust me, I have been doing research on it for at least 6 years.  A student could spend years researching this story and still not be done.  If you want to invest that much time and energy, I would consider helping.  Otherwise, it is just a story and I am not interested in that.

To which he replied:

I didn't mean to suggest that I'm not committed to Cotopaxi or to studying its history. Part of what's motivated me to study the colony is my own Jewish heritage and the commonalities between my own ancestors and the colonists, the idea of home and homeland and my own experience as part of the Jewish diaspora; so it's personal as well as professional. 
Let me also put the work I do into context for you: This research into Cotopaxi is for my PhD dissertation, the completion of which is years away. I work in a branch of literature called documentary poetics, which takes into account images, language, and documents from the past in an effort to place these things in the context of art--but an art that is committed and fully responsible to historical thought and historical fact; it is where scholarship meets language on its own level. I'm very committed to my work, and my projects take years to reach completion. My last project, for example, was about the 19th century painter and naturalist Abbott Thayer. As a naturalist, Thayer discovered the principle of counter-shading, which was used in the development of camouflage in WWI. I carefully read Thayer's entire archive, including journals, correspondence, every word he ever wrote really and produced a work equal to his thought and labors. This project took me five years to complete, and the resulting writing was published in a number of journals and magazines, some nationally reputed.
I hope the above makes clear that I'm committed to the study of Cotopaxi, to the people who lived there, and to the descendants; and I hope you can help me in this study. 

On October 15, I responded:

 Adam, if you are still interested, I will be speaking about Cotopaxi on 1/9/16 at 12:30 pm at the Pueblo public library on Abriendo.  You might benefit from the presentation for your long term research.

I did not hear from him again, and he did not attend the presentation in Pueblo.  He published his article on April 28, 2016.

It's interesting to see his take on the Fort Laramie article.  I think he did a good job.  But he stopped short.  Then he completely switches gear and starts in on Nelson Moore's emails to Miles Saltiel.  While I will not comment on these - one would like to think that emails are private between 2 individuals.  Because Fagin has published them, I presume I have Fagin's permission to publish our emails as I have done above.

He writes about me:

When I scan Jennifer Lowe’s genealogical charts of the Cotopaxi settlers, I’m therefore unnerved. Not due to what I find but because of my lack of response. Lowe’s sifted ship manifest and public record, constructing family trees brimming with names like Milstein, Schames, and Cohn. For me, these names are historical silences.

Why has Lowe,  a born-again Christian or Messianic Jew, depending who I talk to, chosen Cotopaxi for her genealogical rescue mission?  

1. I am not Jewish, but starting to wonder if I can use these allegations to make aliyah to Israel?
2. I believe and trust in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  But for the life of me I do not understand why my religious beliefs have a thing to do with research.  Does Fagin share his religious beliefs with us in this article? Why bring up mine?
3. "rescue mission" - this is neither a "rescue" or a "mission".  As I have often stated before, I was asked by descendants of the Colony to do this research.  And I'm interested in local history.  Why is this a question?
4. Should I be honored or just curious that Fagin is apparently talking about my religion to multiple other people?  Is this how a graduate student conducts research these days?

With every name, I feel history displaced by a present populated with thriving descendants. The themes are persistence and survival in this cheap resurrection fantasy.

I am not clear here - is Fagin referring to his cheap resurrection fantasy?

When I visit the old Cotopaxi cemetery in October, I find the graves of three settlers, all children, who’ve failed to come back from the dead. 

What is the intent of writing that they failed to come back from the dead?  Who would expect that?

At some point, the Jewish subplot was enclosed in an austere black fence. As I approach this fence, I wonder whose memory it is meant to protect–and from what? 

It's obvious that Fagin did not research this aspect at all.  If he had done so, he might know that no one had tended to these graves in 124 years.  He might understand that this fence was erected by donations received from Jewish entities.  It's well documented on Nelson's website.

A Confederate flag is planted in the pale, gold grass.  In this photo, it’s hard to tell whether the flag attends grave or fence. Maybe it’s just a trick of perspective, but this ambiguous placement enables two interpretive possibilities: support for the Confederacy and its white-supremacist ideology. Or wry commentary on Saltiel’s Confederate past as it relates to the death of these children. Which possibility is more ironic? Either way, this spatially dislocated symbol of racism is, for me, punctum, waving-in-the-wind ellipse in the ongoing narrative of the Cotopaxi settlers.Jews wanting to honor the fact that a Jewish cemetery is located at Cotopaxi.

Much ado about nothing?  This is a public cemetery.  Anyone could have placed it there.  It could be next to a confederate grave outside the fenced in Jewish area?  I do not visit the cemetery very often, so I couldn't begin to explain.  Yet Fagin takes great strides to make this look as though someone planted it there intentionally.

SEE UPDATE HERE  - FAGIN KNEW THIS WAS A CONFEDERATE GRAVE - HE COVERED UP THE CONFEDERATE MEDALLION ATTACHED TO THIS FLAG, AND HE ANGLED THE CAMERA FOR HIS PHOTOS

and in the same paragraph he adds:

“[T]heir stories will be told,” Lowe promises purposefully, “should Jehovah allow me the honor of living to do so.” But I want to account for the story, which, in its telling, can’t be told. How can I memorialize as historical process my unlocatable, unnameable present, the long march from identity to self and back.         

Is he insinuating that I put the flag there???  I did not.  And yes, I plan to tell whatever stories that I uncover - from a factual standpoint.   While I have an MBA and thus, to some extent, have experience with the academic world, I am lost as to the gibberish of this phd candidate.  Clear, concise writing based upon facts would be my preference.  One can only attempt to decipher the statement "I want to account for the story, which, in its telling, can't be told."

In an another blog post, Lowe discovers the death records for a family killed one morning in Brest Litovsk, October 15, 1942: “A brother and his wife, their children and all of their grandchildren. Another brother, all 6 of his children, and their children…. and the list just went on.” This is the Brest Ghetto liquidation, which took 50,000 lives. “Now, while this may be hard for you to read,” Lowe says, “and you may be one who has been led to believe that this didn’t really happen…. when you do genealogy and see that an entire family of 3 generations ALL died on the very same day…..you know that it is real.” I wonder how many Holocaust deniers Lowe imagines in her audience. Following Lowe’s reality check, she turns the subject to butterflies she’s made from wire and colorful swaths of fabric. These butterflies, she writes with somber self-congratulation, will memorialize the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered in the Holocaust.

Fagin did not research my art blog.  Had he done so, he would quickly find that at that time, I was promoting an event at the Houston Children's Museum called "the Butterfly Project".  At the same time, I was working with Amaco to teach artists how to use their product - Friendly Plastic. I wrote the piece about the Holocaust to educate fellow artists. Feel free to google my art blog with the word "butterfly" to see all the art submitted to Houston.

What’s the ratio of butterflies to murdered children? 1 to 1,000? Or 100,000? How many butterflies are sufficient to memorialize historical atrocity? These words are masks for memory’s future sweet as children’s dreams.

Fagin would need to contact the Houston  Museum to get his answers to that.  Does he not comprehend art?  The project was sponsored by Jews - I was just a participant hoping to promote it.  He has completely taken this out of the context it was written in.  In most cases, blogs are a continuing story from one post to another. You need to read the entire story.  And a good researcher would have done that.

Lowe’s butterflies dream away from mass death with retrospective grace. Maybe she believes she’s engaged past horrors, but she’s turned away with sickening warmth in her heart.

Again - it was an art project, nothing more.

I am descended, I think, hovering above the negative space her words open inside me. This is myhistorical condition. Like when I tell my grandfather that some people say Jews aren’t white. “Those people are anti-Semites,” he responds. In his voice, I hear conviction masking anger masking fear. Most of all, I notice his defensiveness.
Memorialize that! I want to tell Jennifer Lowe.

Which he could have done!  I find it interesting that he does not share that he has had email contact with me in the past and that he knows how to reach me.  Why didn't he contact me?  Why didn't he  ask his questions about the butterfly project?   Interesting!

Based on the title "War Name" - I have to wonder, does Fagin perceive himself at war with me?  Why does he even mention my name or refer to my posts?  Why does he question my research, my religion?  Is this because I refused to hand over my research to him?  He is a phd candidate at Denver University, the same place where Adam Rovner is collecting documents for Miles Saltiel's bounties.  Are the 3 of them at war with me because I will not turn over my findings to them?

Perhaps in the world of academia, research is freely shared.  Rovner has made it clear that I am not a "professional" researcher.  I have come to realize that the term "professional" simply means paid.  Think in terms of a "professional" athlete or a "professional" seamstress.  Paid for what they do.

I am more than happy to help anyone who wants to research Cotopaxi.  They will need to come to Canon City and I will show them where to look for documents, how to do the research, and even provide hints and tips.  For free.  That's a pretty generous offer.  Sad to say, I don't think phd candidates want to go to that much work.  They just want someone to do it for them.  So here's my offer:  anyone who wants to give me reasonable compensation for 10 years worth of research can have copies of everything I've found to date.  But then, they would have to say my research was "professional".  I don't see that happening - so I suppose the "war" will continue and others will try to discredit what I am doing.

If you'd like to send your thoughts to Fagin just click here.  And you can email me here.

update:  adam fagin is one of 2 paid researchers on Miles Saltiel's website.  That explains even more.  I was able to quickly put together a family tree for fagin.  ALL of his ancestors immigrated after 1888 (that's his earliest immigrant.)  The colony disbanded in 1884.  He does not descend from the Cotopaxi Colony.  Why is he interested in Cotopaxi?  Is Miles paying him to do his dissertation on this topic?

Click HERE for part 2 of this story.

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Fort Laramie, WY - E. H. Saltiel charged with mutiny, found guilty of disloyalty.

Many people have asked me about Fort Laramie when E. H. Saltiel was drummed out of the military at Fort Laramie.   William E. Unrau thoroughly researched this incident and published a lengthy article in Arizona and the West titled "Justice at Fort Laramie: The Trial and Tribulations of a Galvanized Yankee" in the summer of 1973.  I have Mr. Unrau's written permission to republish the article in it's entirety at some future point in time and would like to acknowledge the enormous amount of research he conducted in writing his article.

This is a very condensed synopsis of his article, interspersed with questions for future researchers.

As a bit of background, I need to show that in the 1861 England Census, we find E. H. Saltiel living with his mother and grandmother at 46 Crispin St, Artillery, Spitalfields, Middlesex England.  It shows he was age 16 and a "warehouseman."

Crispin St is located close to Aldgate where his grandmother, Rachel (Hart) Harris was born.  

E. H. Saltiel immigrated to America on the "Great Eastern" (ship) sailing on August 18, 1862.

He is listed as a "draper" which means he was a fabric maker.  From "foreign parts".  He is unmarried and age 18.    Being age 18 as of August 18, 1862 agrees with a date of birth of 1844.

Being a "draper" would make sense as the area where they lived in the 1861 census was an area of silk manufacture.

Here are a couple of questions for future researchers to ponder.    It has been written by others that E. H. Saltiel had a university degree and had military experience in England.  How did he do that by the age of 18?  In England, high school is sometimes called "university".  So that would explain how it has been said that he has a university degree - it is merely a high school diploma.

But the military service - how much did he have, what kind, when did he enroll?  No proof has been uncovered to date of any military service in England.  Only what he tells us in the US military records. 

In Aug, 1863, he is listed in the US Civil War Draft.  Living at 7th & Chestnut St, St Louis.  His occupation is Peddler.  His is unmarried. Shows his place of birth as “U. S.”  Age 21 in August 1863 makes him born before August 1841 and we know he was born in 1844 in England.

Is this the beginning of altering the facts?  He was not born in the US.  And being 21 would make his year of birth 1842, not 1844.

In the same year (1863) this happened at his address:

ST. LOUIS • A wagon escorted by Union soldiers pulled up to a fashionable home on Chestnut at Seventh streets. Ten women climbed on board for a clattering ride to the steamboat landing.
Among them were the wife of a Confederate general and the lady of the house, which had been converted into a prison for women accused of being disloyal. By Union decree, they were being banished to the Confederacy.
At the landing, soldiers marched them and 13 like-minded men onto the packet Belle Memphis on May 13, 1863, for a trip down the river. One month before, President Abraham Lincoln approved instructions for banishing civilians whose public sympathies were too comforting to the rebel cause.

No record has been located showing when he joined the U. S. military. But his military records show he was employed as a clerk prior to the civil war.  Nowhere else do we find that.   They also show he was a native of Alabama....again, incorrect.

E. H. Saltiel states that he was conscripted into the “rebel Army” (Confederate army) against his own will,  for service in Company B of the Third Georgia Infantry.  And later in his "career" he states that this should not have happened as he was still a member of the British forces.  Remember, no record of his enrollment in the British forces has ever been located.

Nonetheless, he was in the Confederate Army and on September 2, 1864, he was captured by Sherman’s army (Union) at Atlanta.  He became a prisoner of war.  On October 26, 1846, he was

incarcerated at the Louisville (Kentucky) prison Camp. He was placed in the "retaliation barracks" and most likely feared for his life.  From the article "Justice at Ft Laramie":

"That night, taking advantage of the slack security of the prison, he disguised himself with "a huge mustache" and a Union overcoat taken from the officer's sleeping quarters, marched across the prison yard, issued some hurried (and obviously vague) orders to the sentinel, and then boldly walked through the outer gate of the prison.  He then proceeded to the ferry landing, where he "endeavored to catch sight of the passes that all officers had to show" as they boarded the boat for New Albany.  Satisfied with the information he had obtained, he quickly walked to the home of "a banker well known in that city," where he apparently obtained the uniform of a Confederate enlisted man,  as well as papers that would allow him to identify himself as an enlisted man in the Georgia Infantry. 

Still in his Union disguise, Saltiel retraced his steps to the prison, gave the guard the proper password, and then walked body to the barracks where a group of Georgia prisoners were awaiting transportation to Camp Douglas for service with one of the Union or "Galvanized," regiments.  "The mustache and brown hair were hurried to the stove...and a plentiful supply of powder rubbed on his face and neck, and there appeared a very young and fair rebel soldier in full uniform, with remarkable dark eyes for one so fair..."  

It was at this point that Saltiel began using the name Joseph Isaacs, so that by the time he arrived at Camp Douglas (armed with the properly forged papers he had obtained in Louisville), there was no easy way to identify him with his real Confederate past."

One has to wonder how he thought he could get away with a false identity....but he did...for a time.  From this point forward, he was known as Joseph Isaacs or J. M. Isaacs.

He was next sent to Camp Douglas, IL.  This was a known Union prisoner's camp.  He took advantage of Lincoln's amnesty program and obtained release from prison by enlisting for service in Indian country, aka a "Galvanized Yankee."  He swore his allegiance to the United States.

Now an enlisted man in Company H under Capt Charles W. Ferrers, E. H. Saltiel, known as Joseph Isaacs was promoted to First Sergeant and arrived at Camp Rankin in Colorado Territory.  His Company was stationed with Company I under Capt John T. Shanks.  Isaacs (Saltiel) entertained ambitions of rapid advancement.  They were then located at Fort Laramie, Wyoming.

Ferrers and Shanks were occasionally expected to provide military escorts for civilian wagon trains.  The wagon masters paid nominal sums of money to the enlisted men for their services.  In late June, 1885, Leander Black agreed to pay $1 per day to each enlisted man in Co H & I who made the trip from Rankin to Fort Laramie with his train.  Shanks seized the money at gunpoint and the men threatened violence.  The money was returned to the men and the commanders were able to persuade their superiors that no outright theft had been attempted.  This was known as the "Black affair."

Isaacs (Saltiel) next landed a sympathetic ear to reasonable complaints voiced by the enlisted men and made sure that additional misconduct on the part of Ferrers came to the attention of the regimental Commander in Denver whom he was friends with.  Tensions between Ferrers and Isaacs (Saltiel) increased and Ferrers saw Isaacs (Saltiel) mounting influence in company affairs as a threat to his own position.  

An August 12, 1865, Ferrers placed Isaacs (Saltiel) under arrest after a confrontation in which Isaacs (Saltiel's) words were considered a direct attack on Ferrers.  Ferraris then searched Isaacs (Saltiel's) quarters and discovered private correspondence that might terminate Isaacs (Saltiel's) military career.  This included papers showing his real name was Emanuel H. Saltiel, he was and Englishman, an Officer of Cadet in the Tenth Tower Hamlet Riflemen in England....and that his loyalty was with England.  

More words/threats ensued and Isaacs (Saltiel) found himself confined to the Fort Laramie guardhouse awaiting a general court-martial  The charges were:

1) mutiny and sedition, carrying a possible death sentence

2) encouraging desertion

3) entertaining and promulgating disloyal sentiments.

His trial began November 13, 1865.  In the interim, he did hard labor.  He was kept in irons.  During his trial, E. H. Saltiel said that he had fought under the confederate flag for 3 years.  The trial was quite involved with much testimony. 

The mutiny, sedition and desertion charges were dropped.  He was found guilty of 2 counts of disloyalty to the government.  His sentence was "to be reduced to the ranks and to be publicly drummed out of the service of the U. S. and forfeit all pay now due him and be marched outside the garrison to the tune of the Rogue's March." This happened in May, 1866.

Saltiel openly stated that his allegiance was with England.  This is after he had pledged his allegiance to the US in order to take advantage of Lincoln's amnesty program and join the Union Army in Indian territory.  The charges he was found guilty of were justified.  Today, it might not mean much to pledge your allegiance to a country, but in 1866 - it was a significant crime.

Of note is that he was never charged with using a false identity in the Army.  While he did this to potentially escape death while in the retaliation camp, keep in mind that he was a prisoner, who escaped prison, obtained the false identity papers, came back and used this identity to escape death.

While he was not found guilty of mutiny, he was charged with that.  Mutiny in the Civil War had to be considered a great crime in this country.  I assume that if HEAS had known any of this, they would not have allowed the Jews to come to Cotopaxi.

I will let you decide the character flaws in this man....but it is becoming more and more apparent that at a very young  age, he was incapable of being truthful. He was just 21 years old when he was drummed out of the military at Fort Laramie.

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