• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

A strain of myxomatosis was discovered to be killing rabbits in California in the 1930S. Dame Jean Macnamara attempted to introduce myxomatosis to Australia, which met with surprising resistance and difficulty, though a program of infection finally came to pass. By 1959, the hundredth anniversary of Austin’s ill-advised importing, the myxomatosis had severely curtailed the rabbit population, but it turned out to be only a temporary solution, as the rabbits eventually developed an immunity.

In the mid-1990S, a Rabbit Calicivirus Disease was launched, which dropped the rabbit populations in the more arid parts of Australia by 95 percent. It is still only a partial measure, but a necessary one. In 1997, rabbits cost Australia over $1 billion per year, approximately $600,000 of that in agricultural costs alone. Each attempt to curtail the rabbit infestation seems only to slow them down briefly. Thomas Austin’s desire for hunting game has reduced an entire continent to an island full of Elmer Fudds continually confounded by a rampaging horde of Bugs Bunnies.

You Lost What?

The American Civil War is considered one of the first modern wars. Troops used breech-loading weapons, and rapid-firing Gatling guns appeared, along with ironclad warships and turrets. It is refreshing to note that a simple, old-fashioned mistake may have changed the course of the whole conflict.

ROBERT E. LEE AND GENERAL GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN

ANTIETAM, 1862

Brian M. Thomsen

Special orders do upset us…

The Civil War was being fought brother against brother, and nowhere was this more prevalent than among the cadre of elite officers who made up the high command for both the Union and the Confederate forces. In many cases these commanders were previously classmates or at least fellow alumni at the honored United States Military Academy at West Point, and they were now forced to sue their shared educations and trainings against one another on the battlefields of Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas.

Robert E. Lee had graduated at the head of his class and was considered by everyone in the military to be the epitome of what it meant to be an officer and a gentleman, and it was with a heavy heart that he resigned his commission in the army of the United States of America to accept the leadership of the army of the rebelling Confederate States of America. By following the allegiances of the place of his birth he knew that he would be, like the country itself, torn asunder by having to do battle with the brothers he had formerly led into combat.

George B. McClellan, heir to a Philadelphia fortune, West Point graduate (second in his class), decorated veteran of the Mexican War, and successful businessman, was heralded as “the Young Napoleon” who would put the Confederacy in its place and bring to a swift end the rebellion that had occurred after the South had fired on Fort Sumter, when he was appointed as commander of the Union’s Army of the Potomac. With his experience, enthusiasm, and intelligence, a quick victory was ensured in the minds of his supporters (and his own) and would lay the groundwork for a run to the White House in the upcoming presidential election.

There was no mistaking his qualifications. He was a master strategist and a self-assured leader; but unfortunately he also tended to overthink problems and draft scenarios that were overly complicated to execute under the fog of war, and as a result the swift and sure victory he had guaranteed was very slow in coming.

The delays codified certain doubts in Washington, which resulted in a major loss of face and support at the high command, which George quickly wrote off as the work of his political rivals, opponents, and detractors. More than anything the situation made him even more cautious as he began to fear making a mistake (and the repercussions on his ego and image) more than the battlefield consequences of any mistake itself.

After having been temporarily relieved of his command (and then reinstated) George was itching for a decisive victory over his Confederate nemesis,