Ancient History

[TRose]

Few points.
First the Army of Philip V was unlike that of Alexander lacked good Cavalry. The Romans had a low opinion of Macedonian Horsemen. Alexander, companions on the other hand where perhaps the best shock cavalry of their era.
And as far as the difference a good general makes, well the best example of that would be Hannibal. Be for Hannibal the mercenaries that made up the Carthaginian army where not very good and the Greeks and Romans never had too hard a time defeating them in the field even when the army of Carthage was much larger. But under Hannibal the same Gauls, Spanish and African suddenly became an army to fear.
And as far as the victors writing history. I think the history I was taught about WWI was a perfect example. In class I was taught the Germans alone where responsible and attacked the rest of the world just to be mean. Reading on my own I feel it was more of a brawl that everyone want to start and everyone was just looking for an excuse to start a fight with no innocents around, at least among the big powers.

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

...

In a nutshell he was a big Alexander Hamilton fan, she wasn't and we were taught two different views on the Hamilton-Burr duel.
...

Ehem...

What is the Hamilton-Burr duel?

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Kloster

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by TRose

Few points.
...
And as far as the victors writing history. I think the history I was taught about WWI was a perfect example. In class I was taught the Germans alone where responsible and attacked the rest of the world just to be mean. Reading on my own I feel it was more of a brawl that everyone want to start and everyone was just looking for an excuse to start a fight with no innocents around, at least among the big powers.

Same experience for me.

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Kloster

[drohem]

Originally Posted by Kloster

Ehem...

What is the Hamilton-Burr duel?

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Kloster

It is American history. Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr were rivals and fought a duel with pistols in 1804. Burr was mortally wounded and died the next day from his wound. Burr was the Vice President at the time and Hamilton was the Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton later became one of American's greatest presidents.

Burr-Hamilton duel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by drohem

It is American history. Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr were rivals and fought a duel with pistols in 1804. Burr was mortally wounded and died the next day from his wound. Burr was the Vice President at the time and Hamilton was the Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton later became one of American's greatest presidents.

Burr-Hamilton duel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ah drohem,

I think you got stuck in the wrong universe!

In this universe, Hamiltion was mortally wounded and died, not Burr. Hamilton never became President of the United States. He did become the poster child for the $20 bill, due to his role in starting the Federal Treasury.


A quick gloss over of the details for Kloster,

Arron Burr was would could probably be best described as an opportunist. He and Hamilton had a long running disagreement. It got so bad that Hamilton started to insult Burr and his reputation, go so far as to put some strong slurs into print. Now, while Burr had his bad points, he took his honor very seriously, and believed strongly that gentlemen should behave as such.

Burr actually went out of his way to try and smooth things over with Hamilton, giving him the benefit of the doubt, and giving him several chances to retract the statement or apologize. But Hamilton wouldn't, and so Burr challenged him to a duel. Dueling was still the way gentlemen setting things, and Hamilton had to accept or else he could have kissed his political aspirations goodbye.

The major point of contention between my two teachers at High School was over just what happened and who was to blame. You see as dueling was illegal (but popular), in order to protect all those involved, elaborate arrangements were made to give all involved a way to plead ignorance of the events and so avoid prosecution. One such step was that the seconds had turned away from the duel so they could honestly claim under oath to have not seen a duel. This led to each second giving a different account, and my teachers didn't agree on whose account is the more accurate one.

One teacher blames Hamilton, stating that Burr gave the man every chance to save face but that Hamilton was determined to ruin Burrs reputation, forcing the duel. At the duel Burr was the better shot, or got lucky.

THe other teacher didn't care for Burr, and believes that Hamilton couldn't have backed down without losing face, and that Burr took advantage of what was really only supposed to be a formality. You see one common practice was for the duelists to fire into the air. Both would be considered to have proven their valor, defended their honor, and the matter (hopefully) settled. The teacher believes that Hamilton fired into the air quickly, but Burr, upon realizing that his opponent was now defenseless, held his shot, took careful aim, and fired...right into Hamilton.


I remeber the duel partly becuase of the conflict between the teachers (a rarity) AND because our teacher was really into it and reenacted the scene in the classroom, pacing across the floor and turning to fire. It was a helluva lot more interesting than "Arron Burr mortally wounds Alexander Hamilton in a duel on July 11th, 1804. Hamilton dies the next day."

[drohem]

hehe...oh snap! I am corrected.

"I picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue."

I was thinking of Jefferson when I wrote that about becoming President for some reason.

Yes, Hamilton never was an American president, he died from the mortal wound in the duel. Although, he was one of the most influential founding fathers.

[Kloster]

Thanks for the american history lesson.
Now that you have explained, I remember an article in a history magazine some 20 years ago that spoke of a famous duel between 2 famous american politicians.
1 was known to having fired in the air, but not the other. And an analysis of the duelling pistols made around 1985 proved that the pistol that fired in the air had a very high sensitivity (a few grams of pressure were sufficient to fire the shot) and the author of the article presumed the air shot had been caused by stress.
Could it have been this duel?
Intricacies of american history can lead to war in your school rooms, but is completely ignored here from France (but our last political duel was in 1967, with swords).

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[badcat]

ahem, Kloster, Aaron Burr IS ancient history, now. But...

If you want to talk about pistol duels instead of phalanx vs. maniple, though, my favorite is Andy Jackson...that rascal took a ball in the chest and calmly stood there and blew away his opponent. Not many years after the Burr affair...and hey, you know about Wyatt Earp?....

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by badcat

ahem, Kloster, Aaron Burr IS ancient history, now. But...

If you want to talk about pistol duels instead of phalanx vs. maniple, though, my favorite is Andy Jackson...that rascal took a ball in the chest and calmly stood there and blew away his opponent. Not many years after the Burr affair...and hey, you know about Wyatt Earp?....

I don't specially want, even if it can be interesting for BRP.
And I saw the shootout at ok corral

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[badcat]

I don't think Westerns are a real good choice for BRP, no. You need not worry...

Then again, there is Deadlands, you don't have to quite playing just 'cause you are dead...