HENRY’S RELATIVES ENSIGN LIEUTENANT CAPTAIN LIEUTENANT CAPTAIN MAJOR JOHN THOREAU This John Thoreau, who was an officer in the British army, does not seem to have had any point of connection with the Thoreau family of Concord. Despite the fact that his life ran concurrently with the lives of John Thoreau and John Thoreau, Jr. of Concord, we do not know that he and they were so much as aware of each other’s existence on the same planet at the same time! This congruence of names, however, offers us an excellent opportunity to place side by side a man of peace with a man of war, and compare and contrast these two very different types of life — and ask ourselves whether it is indeed true, as has been said, or is merely an old saw, that “those who live by the sword die by the sword.” In particular we may ruminate upon whether or not a strong disjunction exists between the life of such a military person living upon expectation of eventual promotion to a next higher ranking and/or upon expectation of eventual arrival in a home port on a durable half-pay pension, on the one foot, and the sort of life that was recommended to us by the Harvard College teenage scholar who asserted in 1834 that we ought not to paint to HDT WHAT? INDEX ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU ourselves “an imaginary Elysium” towards which no step in our progress brings us nearer. –Because, if such a strong disjunction might be made out to exist, then also, the advice Henry offered to us might be made out to be at least in part an expression of a Peace Testimony: that an almost feminine enjoyment of “life as it passes” is more consistent with the choice of a peaceable life than it would be with the choice of the much admired manly spit- and-polish blood-and-guts way of the warrior. “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Another John Thoreau HDT WHAT? INDEX ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU 1787 October 8, Monday: John Thoreau was born in Boston, son of Jane “Jennie” Burns Thoreau and Jean Thoreau (a member of the 4th cohort after the great Huguenot diaspora that had begun during the 16th Century, which would make his son Henry Thoreau out to be a member of the 5th cohort).1 Meanwhile, back in France, King Louis XVI was issuing an “Edict of Toleration” which, among other things, was bringing to a state of legitimacy all the bastards who had been produced by a previous state ruling — that any marriage between loyal French Catholics and loyal French Huguenots was outside the law. THOREAU LIFESPANS 1. Note: We don’t have a date of birth for the other John Thoreau, who would become a British officer. The most we can do safely is, to assign him to the same generation of the Thoreau family as this American John Thoreau. HDT WHAT? INDEX ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU 1804 November: The British John Thoreau, the one for whom we don’t even have a birth date, in this year became an Ensign. According to an article in the Caledonian Mercury of Edinburgh, Scotland for November 15, Thursday, 1804, the “WAR-OFFICE” had released on November 3d a list of the names of officers being posted to various military formations. This appointments list was lengthy, but we note that a “John Thoreau” was being appointed as an “Ensign” to the “4th Foot.”2 (Since, ordinarily, a young man would become an Ensign toward the end of his teenage years, and since John Thoreau of Concord, Massachusetts had been born in 1787 and would have been about seventeen years of age at this point, although we have no date of birth for this British John Thoreau, we may safely presume that these two men of the same name were members of the same generation. We have no idea, of course, whether they were related by blood, and also, we have no idea whether 2. It had been the Light Infantry Companies of His Majesty’s 4th and 10th Regiments of Foot that had marched against the local militias in Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. These were redcoats. The losses of that day, at Concord Bridge, were from the 4th Foot. It would be the 4th Foot that would set fire to the White House during the War of 1812. HDT WHAT? INDEX ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU they were even aware of each other’s existence.) HDT WHAT? INDEX ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU His Majesty’s 4th Regiment of Foot had two battle flags rather than one: NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Another John Thoreau “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU December 2, Sunday: In a glittering ceremony at the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, a ceremony that included of course Pope Pius VII, Napoléon Bonaparte made himself the crowned emperor of France, and then crowned his wife Josephine as Empress. Everybody who was anybody was there. The music for the occasion, a mass and a Te Deum, was by Giovanni Paisello. Due to the entire absence of color photography, the scene would need to be depicted by David: Our question for us of course would be, is the Napoleonic General Thoreau to be found anywhere in this sea of faces? Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1 day 2 of 12 M 1804 / Our Meetings to day were very large. D Buffum was concerned in a few words of testimony in the morning: but my poor mind was tossed about with but little life. in the Afternoon it was rather better. —— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. Another John Thoreau “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU 1807 May 30, Saturday: According to an article in the Caledonian Mercury of Edinburgh, Scotland for June 8, Monday, 1807, copied from the London Gazette, the “WAR-OFFICE” had released on May 30th a list of the names of officers being posted to various military formations. This appointments list was lengthy, but we note that the “Ensign John Thoreau” who had been posted to the “4th Foot” on November 3, 1804 was appointed HDT WHAT? INDEX ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU to be “Lieutenant, without purchase” in the 40th Regiment of Foot. (His Majesty’s 40th Regiment of Foot had for instance fought to drive the forces of General George Washington off of Long Island and away from the port of New-York.) HDT WHAT? INDEX ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU Without purchase means what it says, that Ensign John had not purchased this position for cash or received it through court influence as an English gentleman might do in this timeframe but instead was an ordinary bloke who got it awarded to him merely because of demonstrated military abilities. Since the image portrays an officer of the 30th Regiment of Foot during that timeframe, it will do very well as an illustration of our newly minted young Lieutenant of the 40th Foot named John Thoreau. He was a redcoat. Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7 day 30 of 5 M / After writing the above last evening the pain in my side came on & was more severe that had ever been. it occasioned me to look around & consider that if I should be repatience & the anxiety that such a fit of sickness would accasion [occasion?] who is now at Portsmouth, was by no means the least consideration, but tho’ [through] mercy I am much relieved & favord to be in my Shop today, but not able to use much exercise. ——————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT Another John Thoreau “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU 1811 May 10, Friday: The Accademia dei Concordi performed “The Seasons” by Franz Joseph Haydn, conducted by its musical director Gioaccino Rossini. According to an article in the Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post or Plymouth and Cornish Advertiser of Exeter, England for June 6, Thursday, 1811, copied from the London Gazette Extraordinary for June 3, Monday, 1811, containing information released by “Downing-Street” on June 2d, a list of officers killed, wounded, and missing on the 10th May, 1811 had included the name of “Lieut. Thoreau” among those members of the “1st batt. 40th foot” who had been wounded. Although the list contained modifiers such as “severely,” “slightly,” “since dead,” and “lost an arm,” this information failed to indicate the nature of the wound sustained by Lieutenant John Thoreau. (His subsequent career would indicate that the wound, although it might have put him on the sidelines for awhile, could not have been all that bad.) According to an article in the Aberdeen Journal of Aberdeen, Scotland for June 12, Wednesday, 1811, copied from the London Gazette Extraordinary, “Major-Gen. and Adjutant-Gen.” Charles Stewart had announced among other things that Lieutenant John Thoreau had received a wound “in the Repulse of a Sortie from Badajoz, on the Morning of the 10th May, 1811” as a member of the “1st Batt. 40th Foot” under the command of “Lieutenant-General Lord Viscount Wellington, K.B. under the immediate Orders of Marshal Sir William HDT WHAT? INDEX ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU ANOTHER JOHN THOREAU Carr Beresford, K.B.” Badajoz is in Spain close to the border with Portugal Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 10 of 5th Mo// It has been a day of much seriousness especially the after part of it — Was engaged this forenoon in removing the Books of Records & papers of the Monthly Meeting from Rowse Taylors to David Williams’s who is appointed Clerk in Rowse’s place.