1904: Still another version of the Civil War code-letter story
Tradition! Tradition!
Image credit: Reddit
We’ve previously seen not-quite-identical versions of this Civil War story involving Nesmith & Ingalls & Stanton (& Grant):
None of us are perfect in our
opinions; we all make mistakes,
therefore be it understood that in
comparing the judgement of Mr.
Seward on the question of the pur-
chase of Alaska, with that of Gen-
eral Sherman, I mean no disrespect
to that great man, I merely speak
of these things as a matter of his-
tory and in doing so, call attention
to another of a more amusing char-
acter connected with Oregon, kind-
ly furnished me by Mr. Himes of
the State Historical Society, in
which General Sheridan and Secre-
tary Stantion [sic] figured.On January 25th, 1865, the fol-
lowing dispatch was sent from City
Point, Virginir [sic], by Mr. Nesmith to
General Sherman “Mik a hayack
chahko capo memaloosa illahee
mamook hyn hyas kloske lum.”Nesmith was then United States
Senator for Oregon. He had fre-
quently expressed a desire to wit-
ness a great battle. He was a
Democrat, so was Sheridan. Their
acquaintanceship began in Oregon
where Sheridan served as a second
lieutenant from late in 1855 to 1861.
The dispatch referred to was sent
in care of the War Department and
the then Secretary of War, Mr.
Stanton, suspected something wrong
something treasonable was going
on between these two men in public
life, one a United States Senator and
the other a prominent Army officer.
and all dispatches having to pass
under his scrutiny, he thought “I’ve
got ’em”, believing this was a
cipher dispatch, with secret politi-
cal import. But what did it mean?
Effort atter effort was made to se-
cure a translation without success.
At length the Secretary was in-
formed that in a certain room there
was a certain clerk for Oregon. He
was sent for and requested to
translate this ominous message.
This he did in the presence of the
stern faced War Minister and his
staff, with a smile this Oregonian
wrote out the translation and hand-
ed it to the minister. It read “You
come quickly to Petersburg and
bring plenty of good whiskey” and
so we learn from day to day as we
travel along the road of life that in
small things as well as great, the
very best of us make mistakes.
— from the Cottage Grove (OR) Bohemia Nugget of June 17, 1904, page 1, columns 4-5
Taking a closer look at that Jargon message, and adding my (DDR) precise translation:
“Mik a hayack chahko capo memaloosa illahee”
mayka (h)áyáq cháku kʰapa míməlus-ìlihi(,)
(DDR) ‘You (can) hurry here to the graveyard(,)’
“You come quickly to Petersburg”
“mamook hyn hyas kloske lum.”
mamuk[-cháku*] háyú hayas-łúsh lám.
(DDR) ‘(and) make[-come*] lots of fine booze.’
“and bring plenty of good whiskey”
The quoted CW, somewhat poetically, says ‘graveyard’ rather than ‘Petersburg’. And it looks as if George Himes or the reporter may have left out the second half of the common inflected verb mamuk-cháku ‘to bring’. But there are no unreasonable differences between the Chinuk Wawa text as reported to us & my analysis of what it says.
It’s very interesting to keep finding unique tellings of the same anecdote. To my mind, this indicates yet another little Chinuk Wawa cultural treasure that got genuinely embedded in our Pacific Northwest folklore.
