Giddyup

[Tom Beshear]

Interesting material -- I guess I need to read Lepore's book, which sounds 
fascinating from the emails I've seen here, though I've been told it isn't 
exactly a history of the war. One of William T. Vollmann's projected Seven 
Dreams novels is supposed to center on King Philip's War.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Mackin" <mackin.paul at verizon.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2012 2:33 PM
Subject: Re: Giddyup


> On 10/5/2012 1:39 PM, Monte Davis wrote:
>> I seem to recall from Philbrick that King Philip's War was the highest in
>> per capita casualties on "our" side of all American (or NW European
>> Immigrant) wars.
>
> Yes, because it was total war. No distinction between combatants and 
> civilians.  From the dust jacket of Lepore's book: Both sides, in fact, 
> had pursued the war seemingly without restraint killing women and 
> children, torturing captives, and mutilating the dead.
>
> It outdid, Sherman's march through Georgia by a long shot.  Curtis LeMay's 
> "bomb them into the stone age" and "killing a nation" comes to mind as a 
> modern template.
>
> Lepore's perspective is the reporting of the war (to which reporting 
> Pynchon contributed) then and forward in time.  How public opinion was 
> affected, including how justification for "Indian removal" was formulated 
> in 19th Century.
>
> Pynchon seems quite overcome, never vindictive, just horrified.  In one 
> letter he demurs "I cannot write," meaning he is powerless to express it 
> all.
>
> P
>
>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On 
>> Behalf
>> Of Paul Mackin
>> Sent: Friday, October 05, 2012 11:18 AM
>> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>> Subject: Re: Giddyup
>>
>> On 10/4/2012 12:31 PM, Paul Mac kin wrote:
>>> On 10/4/2012 12:22 PM, Paul Mackin wrote:
>>>> Who knew? John Pynchon was America's first cattle baron and imported
>>>> Irish cowboys.
>>>>
>>>> http://www.lrgaf.org/articles/irish-cowboys.htm
>>> Since it says John Pynchon was a participant in King Philip's War, I
>>> looked for his name in the index of Jill Lepore's The Name of of War.
>>> There are six references. Guess I'll read them after lunch.
>>>
>>> P
>>>
>>>
>> OK, w/r/t Jill Lenore's book on the first Indian War (King Philips War),
>> John Pynchon's horseman (indentured servants,  slaves, and freemen, 
>> termed
>> cowboys in the other account but not by Jill) figured mainly as 
>> messengers,
>> carrying vital news from village to village, doing reconnaissance, etc.
>> Pynchon himself, along with other leaders, wrote letters back home to
>> England keeping them apprised of this horrendous
>> eight year war in the colonies.   A Pynchon letter also describes the
>> destruction of Springfield, in which his own operation was burned to the
>> ground.  He was in effect ruined and thereby, says Lenore,  subject to 
>> loss
>> of identity and social standing in the community. John presumably 
>> retained
>> the substantial  land holdings his father William had left him.
>> William, not mentioned by Lepore,  had had to flee the country after his
>> pamphlet was declared heretical.  a  Lepore makes no mention of the still
>> undecoded Pynchon account of the war, the one described in the online
>> account.
>>
>> P
>>
>>
>