Extra Credit Questions

[Wild Bill]

I think it is on Washington, DC, up on the way to Ft. Stevens, but I do not know its actual name

[Gene C]

Great question.
I had to Google it and was surprised.
Clues will probably be needed on this one.

[L Verge]

Excellent guesses from all, but Bill has come the closest so far. There is a small federal cemetery very close to the remains of Ft. Stevens. However, there is an even smaller one about fifty miles away. Think Sultana...

[Eva Elisabeth]

Then I guess where the ship sank.

[L Verge]

This cemetery has no relationship to the Sultana disaster, but rather to a smaller sinking of a ship en route to the Washington Navy Yard during the Civil War. The small cemetery that Bill mentioned outside of D.C. is called the Battleground Cemetery because of its close proximity to the Battle of Ft. Stevens.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Does it have to do with the over 80 who drowned in the crash on the Potomac when Booth and Herold wanted to cross it?

[L Verge]

(04-23-2016 01:50 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Does it have to do with the over 80 who drowned in the crash on the Potomac when Booth and Herold wanted to cross it?

Has nothing to do with the Black Diamond, but you are in the right vicinity. Think "flowers" instead of gems.

[L Verge]

Time to reveal the answer to the $64,000 question (oldsters will know to what I refer!): The smallest federal cemetery in the U.S. is located in St. Mary's County, Maryland. One monument covers a mass grave of U.S. Navy personnel who were killed shortly after departing St. Inigoes Creek for the Washington Navy Yard. It is known as the USS Tulip Monument.

The Tulip was built in 1862 in New York, but for the Chinese, not the U.S. It was supposed to be used as a lighthouse tender. As our government tried to build up its naval fleet, the ship was purchased by the Department of the Navy and used as a tow and as part of the Potomac Flotilla, which was supposed to patrol the waters in defense of the nation's capital as well as prevent smuggling and other petty little tricks that Southern Marylanders were pulling on their Union occupiers.

The wooden hull ship used steam boilers for power, and in 1863, began to have problems. It was ordered back to the DC Navy Yard for repairs. En route, the boilers blew. 47 men (out of a crew of 57) were killed instantly, and two others later died from their injuries. Many of the bodies floated back downriver and were buried at St. Inigoes - hence the one monument federal cemetery.

The Navy based at Patuxent River nearby still tend the monument and place U.S. flags there. The national newscaster, Ted Koppel, used to own a mid-1700s manor house (Cross Manor) nearby. It was up for sale a few years ago for about $4 million, but I don't know if it ever sold.

I have yet to conclusively find the second smallest federal cemetery, but it might be the Alexandria National Cemetery where the victims of The Black Diamond disaster in the Potomac were interred. I did find a statement that a cemetery on the Ball's Bluff battlefield - where Lincoln's friend Edward Baker was killed in battle - claims to be the third smallest.

[Gene C]

Here's an interesting (Nov 12, 1973) news article about the Ball's Bluff Cemetery titled
"Smallest National Cemetery".

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1...3368&hl=en

[LincolnMan]

Which former presidential candidate once purchased an Abraham Lincoln painting for approximately a quarter of a million dollars?

[Gene C]

Steve Forbes ?

[LincolnMan]

Gene: Nope, excellent guess!

[RJNorton]

Mitt Romney?

[Gene C]

Ross Perot?

[LincolnMan]

Mitt Romney good guess also but not the one.
Ross Perot- yes!!!

Ross Perot purchased Lincoln the Railsplitter by Norman Rockwell. I think it was around 1992. The work of art today is in a museum in Ohio. Perot made quite a hunk of change on it when he sold it.
The painting is wonderful, by the way.