Can I Take Off Yet - Us Fire Administration - Federal Emergency: Fill & Download for Free

I was adopted in the state of California at age four by an older couple. The husband was born in 1907, I was born in 1964. It was 1968 at the time of the adoption. He was also a physically abusive pedophile. At age twelve I had enough of the abuse.They moved us to Klamath Falls Oregon as I was attracting attention with my behavior.Within three months I took a car that had the keys in it and I tried to get back to what I considered my home. The city of Oakland,in the state of California. My mission was to try and find my real mother. Of course taking the car caused me to be arrested. I was sentenced to five years in a youth prison.I was happy to be away from the daily abuse,or so I thought. I wound up staying in that place until my eightteenth birthday. I did the majority of my time in solitary confinement. My longest stay in the hole was nine months.I eventually ended up in the state hospital. I had become self-destructive.I would find ways to get razor blades. I would cut myself from my face to my feet. On one occasion I received almost 300 stitches for one incident.On my eightteenth birthday I was terminated by the judge who had sentenced me. I was driven to the Greyhound bus station and given a one way ticket back to the abusers. I stayed there two weeks.I then was flown to Portland Oregon by the Juvenile Rights Project where I testified in federal court against the state and the institution for neglect, abuse, and torture for the things that happened while in the custody of the institution.Eventually I went in the Army. I made it thru basic training and went to school in Virginia at Ft.Lee for AIT. I graduated and went to permanent party in Grafenwohr Germany. I was there about a year and had serious PTSD start to develop. I was discharged due to psychological difficulties. I eventually ended up on skid row before I was twenty years old. I then went to prison for forty four months for a robbery that was actually an attempt at suicide by cop.I lost my best friend due to suicide.He had spent almost day for day with me in the hole as a kid.I had known him since age thirteen. After being released from adult prison at the age of twenty one he was wanted for a crime he committed. One night he was being pursued by the police. He chose to hide in some random house. He took the family who lived there hostage.For keith this had to be an act of extreme desperation.I later would find that Keith had actually committed a drug robbery of several released prison inmate gang members.He knew he could not return to prison without being in terrible jeopardy. He would have to hide by going into protective custody. That was something Keith would never do.The police responded by cordoning off the immediate area. Every once in awhile keith would shoot in the direction of the police. I believe he was hoping to be killed by the police returning fire. In the middle of the night keith decided to let the people out of the house. He had them walk towards the police.I know all this as I lived in a dorm in the prison at this time. Dorms had 24 hour T.V. priveleges. The police were talking about keith on most of the areas television channels. After letting the people go keith apparently went into the basement. At some point during that night keith decided to shoot himself in the head. He was dead at 22.We had agreed when we were kids that if one of us died or commited suicide that the other would not let him go alone. We were to take our own life. Becoming brothers forever.I intently debated this pact on learning of keiths death.I wondered what keith must have been thinking as he pulled the trigger.Of course I have no way of knowing for certain.I feel that I let keith down. I did not choose to honor our pact.I chose to live. To give it all one more try. I had no idea of my future. I just felt the need to not die in prison.I made it out of prison. I had been paroled. Soon after my release I was hired as a bouncer in a very violent downtown Portland bar. I would meet my wife to be in her apartment about a month after getting hired.We were introduced by friends of ours who were dating. I knew him and she knew her. Amazingly we have been together over 34 years. We have five kids and seven grandkids. Our oldest daughter died from complications of drug addiction.The rest are free from crime. Free from institutions. Free from drugs.On Thanksgiving Day of 2018 I was taken by surprise when I received an email from my birth mother. I had been trying to find her my entire life. This would be the first contact with each other in any way since 1968.We were introduced by a first cousin that I met through a DNA database kept by 23 and me. My mom and I were reunited about two weeks before Xmas . She immediately planned to visit me.She told me she had never been on a plane in her life. She said she was always terribly afraid to fly. Yet she came to Portland Oregon within days of our being virtually reunited. We had been seperated over 50 years. I now have my mother in my life.I have recently been cured of Hep-C. However it did its damage. I have stage 4 cirrhosis.But I survive.I repeat I continue to survive. Never give up!UPDATED WED. MARCH 31 2021My wife has a lifelong history of chronic agoraphobia and chronic panic attacks and extreme anxiety. Unlike most people she had in her life I did not exploit these issues or use her illness against her.She had been the victim of a severely abusive former spouse. A very sick individual that would use her illness against her. If she did not perform sexual acts with other people he would punish her by exploiting her panic disorder and agoraphobia.Her own family,mother included put her in the role of a subservient person with little worth unless she was doing exactly what her family wanted. Very early in our relationship we established a trust with each other that looking back seems impossible. She could trust me not to use her. I would not and have not to this very day ever used her illness against her.She has helped me with my mental health issues.She has been my rock in life whenever I needed grounding. She has the heart of an angel. She helped me to stay alive when life seemed hopeless. Her strength kept me from returning to an institutionalized form of life.She gave me love. She let her children love me. She let me love them. She gave me two of our children in common. She provided a family for me to raise and I daresay a family who helped to fill alot of what was missing in my life. To say that it was an unusual pairing is an understatement.We are now on our 34th year together. We are 32 years married and we just welcomed our 7th grandchild into our family. We have lived thru the passing of our oldest daughter due to opiate addiction.We remain a strong family. We are united even though my children have established there own homes and are at the helm of there own families. My wife and I are your everyday grandma and grandpa on the surface. Underneath we bare the scars from the battles we have fought, but they are hard to find.I am in school pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice. It is my most fervent desire to be of assistance to young people who have been victimized. I would like to be of assistance to any victim who needs help. Understanding victimology and what breaks a young person so that I may assist them to recover there lives is about the best use of the experiences I have accumulated in my lifetime.Thanks for reading and for taking an interest in our story.Damon and Ronnee and family.FEDERAL LAWSUIT AGAINST MACLAREN SCHOOL FOR BOYS.Inmates of Oregon's MacLaren School (a facility for adolescent wards of the juvenile court system, located in Woodburn, Oregon) filed a class action lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. The plaintiffs, represented by the Oregon Legal Services Corporation, the Legal Aid Service, the National Juvenile Law Center, and the Juvenile Justice Legal Advocacy Project of the National Center for Youth Law, asked the district court for declaratory and injunctive relief. They alleged that their constitutional rights had been violated by cruel and unusual punishments such as beatings, macings, druggings with powerful psychotropic drugs, strapping juveniles to beds for long periods of time, forcing them to stand at attention for hours on end, forcing them to sit silently for days at a time, confining them in cramped isolation cells, depriving them of items such as mattresses, reading materials, and bathroom facilities, forcing them to urinate out windows or on the floor, overcrowding, and lack of personal security. They also complained of unconstitutional violations in the areas of due process of law, forced involuntary servitude, right to privacy, freedom of religion, and equal protection (such as failure to provide fire and emergency procedures, use of corporal punishment, failure to provide administrative hearings before discipline, and overcrowding, all of which are regulated by Oregon laws in adult correctional facilities).On February 22, 1985, the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon (Judge James M. Burns) granted declaratory and injunctive relief to the plaintiffs, detailing specific requirements that the defendants had to meet before they could be found compliant with the Constitution. The court issued requirements in the areas of confinement requirements, procedural safeguards, environmental conditions, supplies, clothing, disciplinary procedures, use of restraints, exercise and recreation, education, food, visitation, medical care, drug and alcohol treatment, mental illness, staffing levels, and staff training. The defendants appealed.Add a comment...My wife has a lifelong history of chronic agoraphobia and a chronic panic disorder. She also has extreme anxiety. Unlike most people she had in her life I did not exploit these issues or use her illness against her.She had been the victim of a severely abusive former spouse. A very sick individual that would use her illness against her. If she did not perform sexual acts with other people he would punish her by exploiting her panic disorder and agoraphobia.Her own family,mother included put her in the role of a subservient person with little worth unless she was doing exactly what her family wanted.Very early in our relationship we established a trust with each other that looking back seems impossible. She could trust me not to use her. I would not and have not to this very day ever used her illness against her.She has helped me with my mental health issues.She has been my rock in life whenever I needed grounding. She has the heart of an angel. She helped me to stay alive when life seemed hopeless. Her strength kept me from returning to an institutionalized form of life.She gave me love. She let her children love me. She let me love them. She gave me two of our children in common. She provided a family for me to raise and I daresay a family who helped to fill alot of what was missing in my life.To say that it was an unusual pairing is an understatement. We are now on our 34th year together. We are 32 years married and we just welcomed our 7th grandchild into our family. We have lived thru the passing of our oldest daughter due to opiate addiction.We remain a strong family. We are united even though my children have established there own homes and are at the helm of there own families.On the surface my wife and I are your everyday grandma and grandpa. Underneath we bare the scars from the battles we have fought, but they are hard to find.I am in school pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice. It is my most fervent desire to be of assistance to young people who have been victimized. I would like to be of assistance to any victim who needs help. Understanding victimology and what breaks a young person so that I may assist them to recover there lives is the best use of the experiences that I have accumulated in my lifetime.Thanks for reading and for taking an interest in our story.Damon and Ronnee and family.

HAS PRESIDENT TRUMP FAILED AMERICA THROUGHOUT THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK?The answer to that question is best summed up in an article written by somebody who really knows what he is talking about, based upon facts and figures.Please take the time to read the article below, which is arguably the most enlightening assessment of Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, COVID-19 Pandemic thus far.Statement…None of the following article is written by myself, with no wish to give the impression of using somebody else’s work as my own. But the coronavirus situation is of such importance, that I believe this article by David Frum, forCommentator David Jeffrey Frum is a Canadian-American political commentator. A speechwriter for President George W. Bush, Frum later authored the first book about Bush's presidency written by a former member of the administration. He is credited with inspiring the phrase "axis of evil" in Bush's 2002 State of the Union address.David Frum - WikipediaThis needs to be read by the American people.It directly criticizes Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and his attitude towards it.This criticism is in no way driven by political motivation, but by a clear belief that when it comes down to handling this national and world health crisis, the man in the White House is simply not up to the job.Before dismissing the article as politically biased, please read it, to gain insight into just what is happening here, to protect the American people from this pandemic, or rather…What is not being done!As for Quora moderation, I can only hope that they will view the article as it is intended…For the purpose of information, and not for the purpose of plagiarism.ARTICLE…This Is Trump’s Fault…Written for The Atlantic, By David Frum.© MANDEL NGAN / AFP / GETTY“I don’t take responsibility at all,” said President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden on March 13. Those words will probably end up as the epitaph of his presidency, the single sentence that sums it all up.“Trump now fancies himself a “wartime president.” How is his war going? By the end of March, the coronavirus had killed more Americans than the 9/11 attacks. By the first weekend in April, the virus had killed more Americans than any single battle of the Civil War. By Easter, it may have killed more Americans than the Korean War. On the present trajectory, it will kill, by late April, more Americans than Vietnam. Having earlier promised that casualties could be held near zero, Trump now claims he will have done a “very good job” if the toll is held below 200,000 dead.”“The United States is on trajectory to suffer more sickness, more dying, and more economic harm from this virus than any other comparably developed country.”“That the pandemic occurred is not Trump’s fault. The utter unpreparedness of the United States for a pandemic is Trump’s fault. The loss of stockpiled respirators to breakage because the federal government let maintenance contracts lapse in 2018 is Trump’s fault. The failure to store sufficient protective medical gear in the national arsenal is Trump’s fault. That states are bidding against other states for equipment, paying many multiples of the pre-crisis price for ventilators, is Trump’s fault. Air travelers summoned home and forced to stand for hours in dense airport crowds alongside infected people? That was Trump’s fault too. Ten weeks of insisting that the coronavirus is a harmless flu that would miraculously go away on its own? Trump’s fault again. The refusal of red-state governors to act promptly, the failure to close Florida and Gulf Coast beaches until late March? That fault is more widely shared, but again, responsibility rests with Trump: He could have stopped it, and he did not.”“The lying about the coronavirus by hosts on Fox News and conservative talk radio is Trump’s fault: They did it to protect him. The false hope of instant cures and nonexistent vaccines is Trump’s fault, because he told those lies to cover up his failure to act in time. The severity of the economic crisis is Trump’s fault; things would have been less bad if he had acted faster instead of sending out his chief economic adviser and his son Eric to assure Americans that the first stock-market dips were buying opportunities. The firing of a Navy captain for speaking truthfully about the virus’s threat to his crew? Trump’s fault. The fact that so many key government jobs were either empty or filled by mediocrities? Trump’s fault. The insertion of Trump’s arrogant and incompetent son-in-law as commander in chief of the national medical supply chain? Trump’s fault.”“For three years, Trump has blathered and bluffed and bullied his way through an office for which he is utterly inadequate. But sooner or later, every president must face a supreme test, a test that cannot be evaded by blather and bluff and bullying. That test has overwhelmed Trump.”Trump failed. He is failing. He will continue to fail. And Americans are paying for his failures.“The coronavirus emerged in China in late December. The Trump administration received its first formal notification of the outbreak on January 3. The first confirmed case in the United States was diagnosed in mid-January. Financial markets in the United States suffered the first of a sequence of crashes on February 24. The first person known to have succumbed to COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, in the United States died on February 29. The 100th died on March 17. By March 20, New York City alone had confirmed 5,600 cases. Not until March 21—the day the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services placed its first large-scale order for N95 masks—did the White House begin marshaling a national supply chain to meet the threat in earnest. “What they’ve done over the last 13 days has been really extraordinary,” Jared Kushner said on April 3, implicitly acknowledging the waste of weeks between January 3 and March 21.”“Those were the weeks when testing hardly happened, because there were no kits. Those were the weeks when tracing hardly happened, because there was little testing. Those were the weeks when isolation did not happen, because the president and his administration insisted that the virus was under control. Those were the weeks when supplies were not ordered, because nobody in the White House was home to order them. Those lost weeks placed the United States on the path to the worst outbreak of the coronavirus in the developed world: one-fourth of all confirmed cases anywhere on Earth.”© AP The US was late ordering medical supplies.“Those lost weeks also put the United States—and thus the world—on the path to an economic collapse steeper than any in recent memory.”“Statisticians cannot count fast enough to keep pace with the accelerating economic depression. It’s a good guess that the unemployment rate had reached 13 percent by April 3. It may peak at 20 percent, perhaps even higher, and threatens to stay at Great Depression–like levels at least into 2021, maybe longer”.“This country—buffered by oceans from the epicenter of the global outbreak, in East Asia; blessed with the most advanced medical technology on Earth; endowed with agencies and personnel devoted to responding to pandemics—could have and should have suffered less than nations nearer to China. Instead, the United States will suffer more than any peer country.”“It didn’t have to be this way. If somebody else had been president of the United States in December 2019—Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Mike Pence, really almost anybody else—the United States would still have been afflicted by the coronavirus. But it would have been better prepared, and better able to respond. Through the early weeks of the pandemic, when so much death and suffering could still have been prevented or mitigated, Trump joined passivity to fantasy. In those crucial early days, Trump made two big wagers. He bet that the virus could somehow be prevented from entering the United States by travel restrictions. And he bet that, to the extent that the virus had already entered the United States, it would burn off as the weather warmed.”© Reuters Donald Trump addresses the daily coronavirus taskforce briefing at the White House.“At a session with state governors on February 10, Trump predicted that the virus would quickly disappear on its own. “Now, the virus that we’re talking about having to do—you know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat—as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April. We’re in great shape though. We have 12 cases—11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now.” On February 14, Trump repeated his assurance that the virus would disappear by itself. He tweeted again on February 24 that he had the virus “very much under control in the USA.” On February 27, he said that the virus would disappear “like a miracle.”“Those two assumptions led him to conclude that not much else needed to be done. Senator Chris Murphy left a White House briefing on February 5, and tweeted:”Chris murphy.Chris Murphy ✔ @ChrisMurphyCT“Just left the Administration briefing on Coronavirus. Bottom line: they aren't taking this seriously enough”.“Notably, no request for ANY emergency funding, which is a big mistake. Local health systems need supplies, training, screening staff etc. And they need it now.”“Trump and his supporters now say that he was distracted from responding to the crisis by his impeachment. Even if it were true, pleading that the defense of your past egregious misconduct led to your present gross failures is not much of an excuse.”“But if Trump and his senior national-security aides were distracted, impeachment was not the only reason, or even the principal reason. The period when the virus gathered momentum in Hubei province was also the period during which the United States seemed on the brink of war with Iran. Through the fall of 2019, tensions escalated between the two countries. The United States blamed an Iranian-linked militia for a December 27 rocket attack on a U.S. base in Iraq, triggering tit-for-tat retaliation that would lead to the U.S. killing General Qassem Soleimani on January 3, open threats of war by the United States on January 6, and the destruction of a civilian airliner over Tehran on January 8.”© Getty Donald Trump insisted at Davos in Switzerland in January coronavirus would be 'fine'.“The preoccupation with Iran may account for why Trump paid so little attention to the virus, despite the many warnings. On January 18, Trump—on a golf excursion in Palm Beach, Florida—cut off his health secretary’s telephoned warning of gathering danger to launch into a lecture about vaping, The Washington Post reported.”“Two days later, the first documented U.S. case was confirmed in Washington State.”“Yet even at that late hour, Trump continued to think of the coronavirus as something external to the United States. He tweeted on January 22: “China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!”“Impeachment somehow failed to distract Trump from traveling to Davos, where in a January 22 interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box, he promised: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”“Trump would later complain that he had been deceived by the Chinese. “I wish they could have told us earlier about what was going on inside,” he said on March 21. “We didn’t know about it until it started coming out publicly.”“If Trump truly was so trustingly ignorant as late as January 22, the fault was again his own. The Trump administration had cut U.S. public-health staff operating inside China by two-thirds, from 47 in January 2017 to 14 by 2019, an important reason it found itself dependent on less-accurate information from the World Health Organization. In July 2019, the Trump administration defunded the position that embedded an epidemiologist inside China’s own disease-control administration, again obstructing the flow of information to the United States.”“Yet even if Trump did not know what was happening, other Americans did. On January 27, former Vice President Joe Biden sounded the alarm about a global pandemic in an op-ed in USA Today. By the end of January, eight cases of the virus had been confirmed in the United States. Hundreds more must have been incubating undetected.”“On January 31, the Trump administration at last did something: It announced restrictions on air travel to and from China by non-U.S. persons. This January 31 decision to restrict air travel has become Trump’s most commonly proffered defense of his actions. “We’ve done an incredible job because we closed early,” Trump said on February 27. “We closed those borders very early, against the advice of a lot of professionals, and we turned out to be right. I took a lot of heat for that,” he repeated on March 4. Trump praised himself some more at a Fox News town hall in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the next day. “As soon as I heard that China had a problem, I said, ‘What’s going on with China? How many people are coming in?’ Nobody but me asked that question. And you know better than—again, you know … that I closed the borders very early.”“Because Trump puts so much emphasis on this point, it’s important to stress that none of this is true. Trump did not close the borders early—in fact, he did not truly close them at all.”“The World Health Organization declared a global health emergency on January 30, but recommended against travel restrictions. On January 31, the same day the United States announced its restrictions, Italy suspended all flights to and from China. But unlike the American restrictions, which did not take effect until February 2, the Italian ban applied immediately. Australia acted on February 1, halting entries from China by foreign nationals, again ahead of Trump.”“And Trump’s actions did little to stop the spread of the virus. The ban applied only to foreign nationals who had been in China during the previous 14 days, and included 11 categories of exceptions. Since the restrictions took effect, nearly 40,000 passengers have entered the United States from China, subjected to inconsistent screenings, The New York Times reported.”“At a House hearing on February 5, a few days after the restrictions went into effect, Ron Klain—who led the Obama administration’s efforts against the Ebola outbreak—condemned the Trump policy as a “travel Band-Aid, not a travel ban.”“That same afternoon, Trump’s impeachment trial ended with his acquittal in the Senate. The president, though, turned his energy not to combatting the virus, but to the demands of his own ego.”“The president’s top priority through February 2020 was to exact retribution from truth-tellers in the impeachment fight. On February 7, Trump removed Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman from the National Security Council. On February 12, Trump withdrew his nomination of Jessie Liu as undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial crimes, apparently to punish her for her role in the prosecution and conviction of the Trump ally Roger Stone. On March 2, Trump withdrew the nomination of Elaine McCusker to the post of Pentagon comptroller; McCusker’s sin was having raised concerns that suspension of aid to Ukraine had been improper. Late on the evening of April 3, Trump fired Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, the official who had forwarded the Ukraine whistleblower complaint to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, as the law required. As the epigrammist Windsor Mann tweeted that same night: “Trump’s impeachment distracted him from preparing for a pandemic, but the pandemic did not distract him from firing the man he holds responsible for his impeachment.”“Intentionally or not, Trump’s campaign of payback against his perceived enemies in the impeachment battle sent a warning to public-health officials: Keep your mouth shut. If anybody missed the message, the firing of Captain Brett Crozier from the command of an aircraft carrier for speaking honestly about the danger facing his sailors was a reminder. There’s a reason that the surgeon general of the United States seems terrified to answer even the most basic factual questions or that Rear Admiral John Polowczyk sounds like a malfunctioning artificial-intelligence program at press briefings. The president’s lies must not be contradicted. And because the president’s lies change constantly, it’s impossible to predict what might contradict him.”“BEST USA ECONOMY IN HISTORY!” Trump tweeted on February 11. On February 15, Trump shared a video from a Senate GOP account, tweeting: “Our booming economy is drawing Americans off the sidelines and BACK TO WORK at the highest rate in 30 years!”“became the unofficial policy of the administration through the month of February, and as a result, that of the administration’s surrogates and propagandists. “It looks like the coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump,” Rush Limbaugh said on his radio program February 24. “Now, I want to tell you the truth about the coronavirus … Yeah, I’m dead right on this. The coronavirus is the common cold, folks.”“We have contained this,” Trump’s economic adviser Larry Kudlow told CNBC on February 24. “I won’t say airtight, but pretty close to airtight. We have done a good job in the United States.” Kudlow conceded that there might be “some stumbles” in financial markets, but insisted there would be no “economic tragedy.”“On February 28, then–White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference, near Washington, D.C.”:“The reason you’re ... seeing so much attention to [the virus] today is that [the media] think this is gonna be what brings down this president. This is what this is all about. I got a note from a reporter saying, “What are you gonna do today to calm the markets.” I’m like: Really, what I might do today to calm the markets is tell people to turn their televisions off for 24 hours ... This is not Ebola, okay? It’s not SARS, it’s not MERS.”“That same day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo scolded a House committee for daring to ask him about the coronavirus. “We agreed that I’d come today to talk about Iran, and the first question today is not about Iran.”“Throughout the crisis, the top priority of the president, and of everyone who works for the president, has been the protection of his ego. Americans have become sadly used to Trump’s blustery self-praise and his insatiable appetite for flattery. During the pandemic, this psychological deformity has mutated into a deadly strategic vulnerability for the United States.”“If we were doing a bad job, we should also be criticized. But we have done an incredible job,” Trump said on February 27. “We’re doing a great job with it,” he told Republican senators on March 10. “I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning,” he tweeted on March 18″.“For three-quarters of his presidency, Trump has taken credit for the economic expansion that began under President Barack Obama in 2010. That expansion accelerated in 2014, just in time to deliver real prosperity over the past three years. The harm done by Trump’s own initiatives, and especially his trade wars, was masked by that continued growth. The economy Trump inherited became his all-purpose answer to his critics. Did he break laws, corrupt the Treasury, appoint cronies, and tell lies? So what? Unemployment was down, the stock market up.”“Suddenly, in 2020, the rooster that had taken credit for the sunrise faced the reality of sunset. He could not bear it.”“Underneath all the denial and self-congratulation, Trump seems to have glimpsed the truth. The clearest statement of that knowledge was expressed on February 28. That day, Trump spoke at a rally in South Carolina—his penultimate rally before the pandemic forced him to stop. This was the rally at which Trump accused the Democrats of politicizing the coronavirus as “their new hoax.” That line was so shocking, it has crowded out awareness of everything else Trump said that day. Yet those other statements are, if possible, even more relevant to understanding the trouble he brought upon the country.”“Trump does not speak clearly. His patterns of speech betray a man with guilty secrets to hide, and a beclouded mind. Yet we can discern, through the mental fog, that Trump had absorbed some crucial facts. By February 28, somebody in his orbit seemed to already be projecting 35,000 to 40,000 deaths from the coronavirus. Trump remembered the number, but refused to believe it. His remarks are worth revisiting at length”:“Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus, you know that, right? Coronavirus, they’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, “How’s President Trump doing?” They go, “Oh, not good, not good.” They have no clue. They don’t have any clue. They can’t even count their votes in Iowa. They can’t even count. No, they can’t. They can’t count their votes.”“One of my people came up to me and said, “Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia.” That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything. They tried it over and over. They’d been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning. They lost. It’s all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax.”“But we did something that’s been pretty amazing. We have 15 people [sick] in this massive country, and because of the fact that we went early. We went early; we could have had a lot more than that. We’re doing great. Our country is doing so great. We are so unified. We are so unified. The Republican Party has never ever been unified like it is now. There has never been a movement in the history of our country like we have now. Never been a movement.”“So a statistic that we want to talk about—Go ahead: Say USA. It’s okay; USA. So a number that nobody heard of, that I heard of recently and I was shocked to hear it: 35,000 people on average die each year from the flu. Did anyone know that? Thirty-five thousand, that’s a lot of people. It could go to 100,000; it could be 27,000. They say usually a minimum of 27, goes up to 100,000 people a year die.”“And so far, we have lost nobody to coronavirus in the United States. Nobody. And it doesn’t mean we won’t and we are totally prepared. It doesn’t mean we won’t, but think of it. You hear 35 and 40,000 people and we’ve lost nobody and you wonder, the press is in hysteria mode.”“On February 28, very few Americans had heard of an estimated death toll of 35,000 to 40,000, but Trump had heard it. And his answer to that estimate was: “So far, we have lost nobody.” He conceded, “It doesn’t mean we won’t.” But he returned to his happy talk. “We are totally prepared.” And as always, it was the media's fault. “You hear 35 and 40,000 people and we’ve lost nobody and you wonder, the press is in hysteria mode.”“By February 28, it was too late to exclude the coronavirus from the United States. It was too late to test and trace, to isolate the first cases and halt their further spread—that opportunity had already been lost. It was too late to refill the stockpiles that the Republican Congresses of the Tea Party years had refused to replenish, despite frantic pleas from the Obama administration. It was too late to produce sufficient ventilators in sufficient time.”“But on February 28, it was still not too late to arrange an orderly distribution of medical supplies to the states, not too late to coordinate with U.S. allies, not too late to close the Florida beaches before spring break, not too late to bring passengers home from cruise lines, not too late to ensure that state unemployment-insurance offices were staffed and ready, not too late for local governments to get funds to food banks, not too late to begin social distancing fast and early. Stay-at-home orders could have been put into effect on March 1, not in late March and early April.”“So much time had been wasted by the end of February. So many opportunities had been squandered. But even then, the shock could have been limited. Instead, Trump and his inner circle plunged deeper into two weeks of lies and denial, both about the disease and about the economy.”“On February 28, Eric Trump urged Americans to go “all in” on the weakening stock market.”“Kudlow repeated his advice that it was a good time to buy stocks on CNBC on March 6 after another bad week for the financial markets. As late as March 9, Trump was still arguing that the coronavirus would be no worse than the seasonal flu.”“So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of Coronavirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”“But the facade of denial was already cracking”.“Through early March, financial markets declined and then crashed. Schools closed, then whole cities, and then whole states. The overwhelmed president responded by doing what comes most naturally to him at moments of trouble: He shifted the blame to others.”“The lack of testing equipment? On March 13, Trump passed that buck to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Obama administration.”“The White House had dissolved the directorate of the National Security Council responsible for planning for and responding to pandemics? Not me, Trump said on March 13. Maybe somebody else in the administration did it, but “I didn’t do it ... I don’t know anything about it. You say we did that. I don’t know anything about it.”“Were ventilators desperately scarce? Obtaining medical equipment was the governors’ job, Trump said on a March 16 conference call”.“Did Trump delay action until it was far too late? That was the fault of the Chinese government for withholding information, he complained on March 21.”“On March 27, Trump attributed his own broken promises about ventilator production to General Motors, now headed by a woman unworthy of even a last name: “Always a mess with Mary B.”“Masks, gowns, and gloves were running short only because hospital staff were stealing them, Trump suggested on March 29”.“Was the national emergency medical stockpile catastrophically depleted? Trump’s campaign creatively tried to pin that on mistakes Joe Biden made back in 2009.”“At his press conference on April 2, Trump blamed the shortage of lifesaving equipment, and the ensuing panic-buying, on states’ failure to build their own separate stockpile. “They have to work that out. What they should do is they should’ve—long before this pandemic arrived—they should’ve been on the open market just buying. There was no competition; you could have made a great price. The states have to stock up. It’s like one of those things. They waited. They didn’t want to spend the money, because they thought this would never happen.”“Were New Yorkers dying? On April 2, Trump fired off a peevish letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer: “If you spent less time on your ridiculous impeachment hoax, which went haplessly on forever and ended up going nowhere (except increasing my poll numbers), and instead focused on helping the people of New York, then New York would not have been so completely unprepared for the ‘invisible enemy.’”“Trump’s instinct to dodge and blame had devastating consequences for Americans. Every governor and mayor who needed the federal government to take action, every science and medical adviser who hoped to prevent Trump from doing something stupid or crazy, had to reckon with Trump’s psychic needs as their single biggest problem.”“As his medical advisers sought to dissuade Trump from proceeding with his musing about reopening the country by Easter, April 12, Deborah Birx—the White House’s coronavirus-response coordinator—appeared on the evangelical CBN network to deliver this abject flattery: “[Trump is] so attentive to the scientific literature & the details & the data. I think his ability to analyze & integrate data that comes out of his long history in business has really been a real benefit.”“Governors got the message too. “If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call,” Trump explained at a White House press briefing on March 27. The federal response has been dogged by suspicions of favoritism for political and personal allies of Trump. The District of Columbia has seen its requests denied, while Florida gets everything it asks for”.“The weeks of Trump-administration denial and delay have triggered a desperate scramble among states. The Trump administration is allocating some supplies through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but has made the deliberate choice to allow large volumes of crucial supplies to continue to be distributed by commercial firms to their clients. That has left state governments bidding against one another, as if the 1787 Constitution had never been signed, and we have no national government”.“In his panic, Trump is sacrificing U.S. alliances abroad, attempting to recoup his own failure by turning predator. German and French officials accuse the Trump administration of diverting supplies they had purchased to the United States. On April 3, the North American company 3M publicly rebuked the Trump administration for its attempt to embargo medical exports to Canada, where 3M has operated seven facilities for 70 years”.“Around the world, allies are registering that in an emergency, when it matters most, the United States has utterly failed to lead. Perhaps the only political leader in Canada ever to say a good word about Donald Trump, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, expressed disgust at an April 3 press conference. “I just can’t stress how disappointed I am at President Trump ... I’m not going to rely on President Trump,” he said. “I’m not going to rely on any prime minister or president from any country ever again.” Ford argued for a future of Canadian self-sufficiency. Trump’s nationalist selfishness is proving almost as contagious as the virus itself—and could ultimately prove as dangerous, too.”“As the pandemic kills, as the economic depression tightens its grip, Donald Trump has consistently put his own needs first. Right now, when his only care should be to beat the pandemic, Trump is renegotiating his debts with his bankers and lease payments with Palm Beach County.”“He has never tried to be president of the whole United States, but at most 46 percent of it, to the extent that serving even the 46 percent has been consistent with his supreme concerns: stealing, loafing, and whining. Now he is not even serving the 46 percent. The people most victimized by his lies and fantasies are the people who trusted him, the more conservative Americans who harmed themselves to prove their loyalty to Trump. An Arkansas pastor told The Washington Post of congregants “ready to lick the floor” to support the president’s claim that there is nothing to worry about. On March 15, the Trump-loyal governor of Oklahoma tweeted a since-deleted photo of himself and his children at a crowded restaurant buffet. “Eating with my kids and all my fellow Oklahomans at the @Collective OKC. It’s packed tonight!” Those who took their cues from Trump and the media who propagandized for him, and all Americans, will suffer for “.“Governments often fail. From Pearl Harbor to the financial crisis of 2008, you can itemize a long list of missed warnings and overlooked dangers that cost lives and inflicted hardship. But in the past, Americans could at least expect public spirit and civic concern from their presidents”.“Trump has mouthed the slogan “America first,” but he has never acted on it. It has always been “Trump first.” His business first. His excuses first. His pathetic vanity first”.“Trump has taken millions in payments from the Treasury. He has taken millions in payments from U.S. businesses and foreign governments. He has taken millions in payments from the Republican Party and his own inaugural committee. He has taken so much that does not belong to him, that was unethical and even illegal for him to take. But responsibility? No, he will not take that.”“Yet responsibility falls upon Trump, whether he takes it or not. No matter how much he deflects and insults and snivels and whines, this American catastrophe is on his hands and on his head”.About the writer…Commentator David Jeffrey Frum is a Canadian-American political commentator. A speechwriter for President George W. Bush, Frum later authored the first book about Bush's presidency written by a former member of the administration. He is credited with inspiring the phrase "axis of evil" in Bush's 2002 State of the Union address.David Frum - WikipediaEXTRA INFORMATION…About this answer.There is no plagiarism involved with this answer, It is stated crystal clear at the beginning of the answer, exactly who was the author of this article, being Mr David Frum, a major speech writer for George Bush, and where the article was gained from. The article by Mr Frum has already gained over 20 thousand views, with over 200 upvotes, proving how popular it is with the readers. There is also information at the end of the article regarding the Author David Frum. So to consider it to be plagiarized is not plausible.To collapse or delete the answer, removes information which should be shared by the American people about the Coronavirus, Covid-19 Pandemic. Also about the American governments handling of it.ABOUT THE ANSWER BEING COLLAPSED…This article by David Frum is one of the most important ever to be written.An article containing the truth, concerning the dangerous Covid-19 Pandemic, which has already claimed the lives of over 100 thousand American people, and over a million World wide.This is also, a highly popular article…Having gained over 70 thousand views with over 704 upvotes, being shared by 82 people, including a mass of comments, within a healthy comments, debating section, gained in a very short period of time, proving how popular it was, and still is. Only a handful of people out of 70 thousand, who took the time to read the answer, complained or disagreed with the writer in the comments section about the article.Being collapsed, deleted, and re-instated, several times…When Quora collapsed this article by David Frum, one of the finest speech writers in history, with a message saying that “It may need improvement” they threw away one of the most important articles ever written, along with 70 thousand views, 704 upvotes, 82 shares and a mass of comments, within a healthy debating session.Thankfully, the answer is now restored, to where it belongs to be…Where the people can read it, and sample the truth, about how this Covid-19 Pandemic, has been handled by the American government, under the leadership of Donald John. Trump.Please enjoy a chance to read the truth…While Quora allow you to.Also…For an informative article informing…TRUMP THREATENS TO SUSPEND THE “WHO” WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION FUNDING…Plus more information on the handling of the coronavirus, COVID-19 Pandemic in the U.S.A by Donald Trump and the Republican party, please visit the comments section below.

There are a lot of candidates, but the one I'd go with might surprise a few people.The Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia.No, not the Battle of Fredericksburg fought on December 13, 1862. And not even the Battle of Fredericksburg fought on May 3, 1863. I'm talking about the combat that took place at Fredericksburg on December 11, 1862, the day Ambrose Burnside fell ass backwards into two profound "firsts" in American military history.Kurz and Allison lithograph of the pontoon bridge debacle on December 11, 1862Specifically, the battle on December 11, 1862 resulted in the first amphibious/riverine crossing under fire in American military history, and the first instance of sustained urban combat in American military history. Given the subsequent course of warfare, breaking those two thresholds in a single instance of combat is worth more attention, I've always felt. Unfortunately, the action on December 11, 1862 has always been overshadowed by the debacle that followed two days later beneath Marye's Heights.Major General Ambrose E. BurnsideAmbrose Burnside took command of the Army of the Potomac on November 7, 1862, after Abraham Lincoln finally lost his patience with George B. McClellan and sacked him. Burnside was a reluctant commander who had turned down offers of command at least once, and probably twice, before this moment. He turned it down that day as well, but was arm-twisted into taking the job with the threat of his least favorite colleague, Joseph Hooker, getting the gig instead. Among the reasons for Burnside's reticence was his genuine belief that he was not up to the challenge of overall command. That's going to be important later on.In spite of his lack of confidence and his reluctance to take the job, Burnside actually did pretty well out of the gate. Within two days of taking command, he had reorganized the Army of the Potomac into "grand divisions" and come up with an ambitious plan of campaign against Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia.The initial movements in the Fredericksburg CampaignAt the time he took over the reins of command, the armies in Virginia were situated well west of their usual area of operation. The Army of the Potomac was concentrated at and around Auburn, Virginia, about 50 miles west-southwest of Washington, D.C., and 90 miles north of the Confederate capital city of Richmond. The Army of Northern Virginia was spread out in a wide arc to cover all avenues by which the Federals might advance. James Longstreet's corps was concentrated around Culpeper Court House, which was west of Auburn and farther from Richmond than the Army of the Potomac. "Stonewall" Jackson's corps was even farther away, in the Shenandoah Valley. Burnside saw that, by a direct march from Auburn to Fredericksburg, the Army of the Potomac might interpose itself between Richmond and the Confederate army, either opening the door to capturing the capital or forcing Lee to pursue recklessly to prevent that from happening.The War Department was lukewarm on Burnside's plan, believing that Lee's army and not Richmond should be the object of any campaign. Lincoln, also lukewarm on Burnside's plan, quickly assented because he was more concerned there should be some forward movement before the end of 1862 than he was about what the specific movement should prioritize.Burnside set the army in motion on November 15, and the advance elements reached Falmouth, on the north bank of the Rappahannock River opposite Fredericksburg, on the 17th. For an army used to marching at the methodical pace preferred by George B. McClellan, this was no small feat. What's more is that it took Robert E. Lee completely by surprise. Lee had anticipated that the fighting was done for the winter months, but reasoned that if any Federal advance did happen before spring, it would come down the line of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad towards Longstreet at Culpeper. Lee knew that Burnside was on the march the day the Federals stepped off, but he did not divine their destination until they arrived at Falmouth. He set Longstreet and his corps off towards Fredericksburg, with large elements heading further south towards the North Anna River, in anticipation that Burnside would win the race to cross the Rappahannock.Everything seemed to be going off without a hitch for Burnside thus far. It was only when he reached Falmouth himself that he realized a critical element of his plan was missing. You see, the bridges that had once spanned the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg had long since been burned, so the only way to cross the river there was by a bridge constructed with pontoon boats. And those pontoon boats were nowhere to be found when the advanced elements arrived at the river.Pontoon boats, as they would appear when mobilized for transport over landThey would not be soon in coming, either. Through a misunderstanding between Burnside and General-in-Chief Henry Halleck at Washington, the pontoon boats were not forwarded to Falmouth with all possible speed. Halleck did not appreciate the urgency, and Burnside did not make it apparent the pontoons were so urgently needed until he'd already arrived at Falmouth. There followed an administrative bungling of epic proportions, such that the first pontoon boats did not arrive in Falmouth until November 25, eight solid days after the Army of the Potomac first had need of them.In the meantime, the Army of Northern Virginia had made up the ground lost to Burnside between the 15th and the 17th. Longstreet's entire Corps had arrived at Fredericksburg by November 23, two days before the first pontoon bridges began to arrive. When Lee saw that Burnside's whole force was at Falmouth, he called for Jackson to force march to the Fredericksburg area on November 26. Jackson's entire corps was in the vicinity by December 3.Burnside now faced an unpleasant situation. He had lost the advantage of inside position, and now needed to cross the Rappahannock River against a determined foe in significant force. Lincoln and the War Department were expecting an engagement before the end of the year, so he couldn't simply stand pat and wait for spring. Burnside took his time after losing the race to Fredericksburg, feeling that there was no longer any advantage to be gained by speed. Better to plan meticulously and come up with a sound plan before trying to force the Rappahannock.Except the plan he came up with was, for lack of a better word, dogshit. It revealed the greatest flaw in his command ability; his inability to anticipate and adapt to changing circumstances. He'd had a decent plan in early November, and he'd executed it to near perfection before events outside of his control derailed it. Now, the best idea he could come up with was to force the river right at the town of Fredericksburg, in the delusional belief that Lee had dispersed most of his army up and down the river to prevent crossings at other places.It was true that Lee had dispersed much of his army, but that didn't make crossing at Fredericksburg any wiser. Firstly, because it was the most easily defensible part of the line held by Lee, with low ridges and hills ringing the floodplain around the town of Fredericksburg that would need to be carried by assault no matter in what force Lee held them with. Second, as the very central part of Lee's line, and with numerous good roads in the vicinity, it was the easiest place for Lee to quickly concentrate the entirety of his army, should he suspect a major attack there. Burnside's subordinates almost unanimously believed the crossing at Fredericksburg to be a terrible idea, but Burnside did not take their criticisms well, and decided to go ahead with the operation.The Rappahannock Valley around Fredericksburg, Virginia.The matter settled, the engineers of the Army of the Potomac were ordered to prepare constructing pontoon bridges across the Rappahannock. Two bridges were to be constructed opposite the town itself; one at the north end and one at the south end. A third set of bridges would be constructed further downstream. Construction was to begin before dawn on December 11, 1862.The night of December 10-11, 1862 was cold, the mercury hovering just above freezing. In the pre-dawn darkness, the volunteer engineers of the 15th New York and the U.S. Army Engineer Battalion moved their pontoons near the shore of the Rappahannock at a place that would come to be known as Franklin's Crossing. A mile upriver, across from the town itself, volunteer engineers from the 50th New York did the same.On the other side of the river, a brigade of Confederates from Mississippi waited quietly for any attempt by the Yankees across the river to come their way. Having been posted in the town for some time now, they were used to hearing noises from the Yankees on the other side of the river, but this night was different. The noises were louder, with thuds and bangs and the sounds of hammers and wheeled vehicles. Something was up. Their commander, Brigadier General William Barksdale, rousted two of his regiments, the 17th and 18th Mississippi Infantry, and had them deploy in the buildings along the riverfront. The buildings there had been reinforced, along with rifle pits constructed in the adjoining yards, and basement walls knocked out so men could move freely without exposing themselves. Barksdale kept his other two regiments, the 13th and 21st Mississippi, in reserve deeper into town. He sent word to his division commander, Major General Lafayette McLaws, that bridge-building had begun opposite the town. McLaws forwarded him reinforcements in the form of the 8th Florida Infantry, and told him to wait until the engineers were well out into the river before opening on them.Confederate Brigadier General William Barksdale, in command of the Rebels holding FredericksburgShortly before dawn, the air temperature began to rise quickly, and a thick blanket of fog carpeted the banks of the Rappahannock. The Federal engineers considered themselves lucky, as the fog would hopefully give them cover past daylight. As 5:00 a.m. neared, the bridges both up and downstream were reaching across the halfway point of the river. Some of the engineers no doubt began to suspect this job might be easier than they'd feared.And then all hell broke loose.Barksdale’s Mississippians engage the Federal engineers from the buildings in FredericksburgAbout ten minutes before 5 a.m., the Federal engineers were alarmed to hear the distant reports of two Confederate cannon. Unbeknownst to them, this was the signal for Lee's army to begin concentrating at Fredericksburg. The engineers no doubt tensed up, fully expecting to be fired on immediately. But then, a minute went by, and all remained silent as the echoes of the cannon fire faded away. Five minutes later, it was still quiet. Finally, at 5 a.m. on the nose, Barksdale ordered his men to open fire. A few of the engineers recalled the sound of a Confederate officer breaking the eerie silence with an order to commence firing. Within seconds, the whole Fredericksburg waterfront across from the bridges was alive with musket fire."We were in the act of unloading a pontoon boat by sliding it off the hind end of a wagon that had been backed up close to the water. Captain [Augustus] Perkins was helping us and was pulling on a rope attached to the boat, and just as it slid off the wagon, the enemy opened a volley on us. Then the air was full of "bees," and all was confusion for a little while. The firing continued, and men, horses, and mules fell killed or wounded. Daylight soon came, and so did the ambulance men with their stretchers, picking up the dead and wounded. There lay the Captain. He had been instantly killed. I help lay him on a stretcher, and they carried him back up the hill he'd come down so full of life such a short time before, amid a roar of a hundred pieces of artillery which were belching shot and shell over our heads on the city, and the enemy beyond." - Sergeant Thomas J. Owen, 50th New York EngineersThe engineers, who were not armed, had no way to return fire, and the bridges offered no cover whatsoever. The only things in their favor in this unequal contest was the thick fog bank and the dim lighting, which no doubt helped to obscure them from their Confederate tormenters. Even so, staying on the bridges was a death sentence. The engineers who were not hit quickly abandoned their work to seek cover on the shore. As the engineers fled to cover, the Confederate fire tapered off. A few times, the engineers tried to return to their work, but each time they did, they were met with a storm of bullets.Brigadier General Daniel P. Woodbury, commanding the engineers of the Army of the Potomac, wrangled up about 75 volunteers from the 8th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry to go out on the bridges and provide cover fire. Despite being armed, these men found the bridges no more pleasant than the engineers had, and were soon forced back to cover after about twenty had been hit.The situation was at an impasse, as no work could continue on the bridges as long as the Mississippians occupied the far shore. Infantry fire had done nothing to diminish the Confederate fire, so something more effective would need to be found, and fast.Across the river, at the Chatham Mansion on Stafford Heights, Ambrose Burnside was seething. Once again, he had formulated a plan that depended on speed and surprise to be successful, and once again he was being met with frustration and failure. Some days earlier, he had believed that an agreement had been reached between himself, General Lee, and the city elders of Fredericksburg. That agreement was that no harm would come to the town as long as it was not occupied by Confederate troops. Yet now, hours after he'd hoped to have pontoon bridges across the Rappahannock, he was being stymied by Confederate infantry dug deep into the buildings of the town.Brigadier General Henry J. Hunt, Chief of Artillery for the Army of the PotomacBurnside called upon his Chief of Artillery, Brigadier General Henry J. Hunt. Hunt had position well over 150 artillery pieces on the commanding ground of Stafford Heights, overlooking the river. Feeling fully justified that Lee and the Fredericksburg elders had violated their agreement, he ordered Hunt to open up on the city with all his might. Hunt, a conservative Democrat who was very much in the McClellanesque "soft war" approach, was alarmed by Burnside's order. He went away resolving to fire only upon the buildings along the waterfront, where Confederate troops were firing from, in order to minimize the collateral damage.Federal artillery bombards the city of FredericksburgFor two hours, starting about 11 a.m. (at about which time the engineers at the lower crossing finished their work largely undisturbed), the guns on Stafford Heights pummeled the riverfront areas of Fredericksburg. Shells exploded in houses and streets, solid shot crashed through walls and roofs, and the areas were mostly wrecked. The engineers were told to be prepared to resume work on the bridges once the bombardment ceased.When it did so around 1 p.m., Burnside, and especially the luckless engineers, discovered something many American generals and fighting men would discover in the wars and decades that followed. Artillery bombardments (and aerial bombardment, for that matter) rarely is able to neutralize enemy infantry in an urban position. The Mississippians had kept their heads down through the shelling, and when it ended, they emerged from the basements and rifle pits they'd hid in and resumed firing on the Federals. Again, after losing more men to the fire coming from Fredericksburg, the engineers were forced back and work on the bridges could not go forward.Burnside again called on Hunt and expanded his previous orders. Now, Hunt was to fire on the town without care for whether the areas targeted were confirmed to be occupied by Confederate troops. Hunt believed that Burnside had ordered him to shell the town indiscriminately, and Burnside did not care to correct that notion. In his report, Hunt mentioned the moral quandary this put him in. He was already upset by being ordered to fire on the parts of town he knew to hold Confederate troops, but now it appeared he was supposed to shell the whole place, mostly because Burnside was extremely frustrated.Hunt, a consummate soldier, did as he was ordered to do. The town was shelled for the better part of another hour, with a few breaks in the firing to see if it had had any effect. Every time the engineers came out of hiding and crept towards the bridges, the Mississippians would open fire on them, and another bombardment would answer. Having seen that the orders he disagreed with on a moral level had failed to achieve their desired effect, Hunt approached Burnside with a new idea.Before continuing, it should be noted that the Confederates were incensed by this bombardment of the town of Fredericksburg, while taking absolutely no ownership in their role in it. Robert E. Lee, observing the bombardment from Marye's Heights beyond the town, was recorded as saying, "Those people delight to destroy the weak and those who can make no defense. It just suits them." Yet Lee, in deploying Barksdale and his Mississippians in the town of Fredericksburg itself, must have been aware that their presence would invite that very response.Artillery damage inflicted on Fredericksburg by Federal artillery, December 11, 1862Hunt's new idea was this: What if infantry used some of those pontoon boats to cross the river and establish a bridgehead on the Fredericksburg side? Wouldn't the engineers then have the cover they needed to complete the bridges?Burnside waffled. He thought the idea was promising, but the expected toll in lives among the men making such an assault concerned him. It sounded to him like a forlorn hope. But, out of ideas of his own as to how to carry the river, he told Hunt that if he could find volunteers for the riverine assault, he would give it his blessing. Hunt, relieved that he no longer had to indiscriminately shell Fredericksburg, went off to find some infantry who were game.Colonel Norman J. Hall was something special. Only 25 years old, he was here at Fredericksburg in command of a brigade of the 3rd Division, Second Army Corps, his first battle in command of a brigade. Hall had already seen more combat than many men twice his age.Colonel Norman J. Hall, commanding 3rd Brigade, 3rd Division, Second Army CorpsBorn in 1837, Hall had gotten an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on the recommendation of then-Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. He graduated in 1859, 13th in a class of 22. A few years later, he found himself assigned to the U.S. Army detachment in the harbor defenses of Charleston, South Carolina. He'd gotten a front-row seat to the beginning of the war there, and came home one of the heroes of Fort Sumter. During the bombardment of the fort, a Confederate shell had knocked the pole holding the American flag to the ground. Hall ran out onto the parade ground, then on fire from Confederate shells, and replaced the flag and pole. He was slightly wounded for his troubles, suffering burns on his face and losing his eyebrows permanently.Hall returned to his native Michigan and helped recruit a regiment of volunteers, but was not given a commission at that time. He joined the Army of the Potomac in command of a battalion of artillery, and participated in many of the battles on the Peninsula. In July 1862, he was finally given the commission he had wanted, as Colonel of the 7th Michigan Volunteer Infantry. He led the 7th in the Battles of Second Manassas and Antietam, where he was wounded. The 7th Michigan lost 60% of its men at Antietam, including 20 of its 23 commissioned officers. Also wounded in the battle was Brigadier General Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana, the commander of the brigade in which Hall's regiment served. When Hall recuperated, he was given command of the brigade in Dana's absence.So it was that Henry J. Hunt found him there on Stafford Heights on December 11, 1862. Virtually fearless and always eager for a fight, Hall volunteered his own 7th Michigan, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Henry Baxter, for the daring assault. He committed the rest of his brigade in support. Hunt reported Hall's offer to Burnside, and Burnside gave the plan a green light.Hall had his men march down to the riverfront and deploy behind cover to wait for the signal to attack. That signal would be the end of another bombardment of the riverfront areas of Fredericksburg. A little past 2 p.m., the guns opened again, and fired with renewed vigor for about half an hour. The guns fell silent, and about 70 men from the 7th Michigan broke cover and ran for the nearest pontoon boats. A few of the nervous engineers were roped into serving as oarsmen, and the boats set off as quickly as they could.Men from Michigan and New York cross the Rappahannock in pontoon boats to establish a bridgehead on the Fredericksburg sideThe Confederates soon directed their fire upon them, and men began to get hit. Some Michiganders returned fire as best they could from the boats, while most laid down below the gunwales to obscure themselves. Lieutenant Colonel Baxter, in command of this first wave of the assault, was struck in the chest by a bullet that perforated one of his lungs. He survived the wound, but was out of the fight. As the boats were about a third of the way across the 400-foot span of the river, things were getting hairy, although casualties were still unexpectedly low. Only one man had been killed thus far.Then, when the boats hit the halfway point in the river, something fortuitous happened. The Rappahannock had bluffs on both sides of the riverbank, and on the Fredericksburg side, the buildings there had been built a short distance back of the river's edge because of this. Once the boats reached a point about halfway across the river, they achieved defilade. In other words, the 10-foot bluff on that side of the river served to obscure them from the Confederates in the riverfront buildings and yards, allowing them to cross the rest of the span without taking fire.The bluffs also proved a godsend when the boats grounded on the far side of the river. Instead of having to exit the boats and wade to shore under fire, the Michiganders were able to get ashore and form a skirmish line all while protected from Confederate fire, thanks to the bluff. Major Thomas J. Hunt, who had taken command when Baxter went down with his wound, gave his men an order that was rarely heard in this war. He told the men of the 7th Michigan to take no prisoners in the upcoming attack. Fortunately for a number of Mississippians nearby, his men largely disregarded that order.When the Michiganders were organized in a line, they leapt up over the bluffs and assaulted the nearest buildings. Having come ashore at the foot of Hawke Street, they moved into the buildings to the left of its intersection with Sophia Street, along the shoreline. The assault was remarkably successful. The Confederates here were driven from the buildings along the river in short order, with over thirty Mississippians taken prisoner. Barksdale responded to this new threat by ordering his reserve regiments up to join those on the riverbank, forming a new line in the buildings along Caroline Street, the next street up from the riverfront.At about the same time as the 7th Michigan made its assault across the river, men from New York were doing the same a few hundred yards to the south, at the lower end of town opposite the middle crossing. Ambrose Burnside, seeing the enthusiastic response of Hall's Brigade to the plan of storming the opposite shore, had warmed to the idea and ordered the 89th New York to form a detachment for the same purpose. The crossing of these New Yorkers, about 150 men in six pontoon boats, met with even more success than the one at the upper crossing. Not a single man was killed in the crossing, although several were wounded, and just like with the Michiganders, the bluffs provided cover beyond the halfway point of the river. Once ashore, the New Yorkers assaulted the riverfront buildings and drove off the Confederates with little loss.By shortly past 3 p.m., the most dangerous waterfront areas of Fredericksburg were in Union hands. The engineers, now free of their tormentors, could resume work on the bridges. When Burnside and Hunt had conceived the idea of sending infantry across the river to establish a bridgehead on the far bank, they could never have imagined that success would be so total, and the cost so small. Clearly, judging from the ease with which the Federals took the most important sections of Fredericksburg, Barksdale and the Mississippians never expected the Yankees to try such a thing. The riverine assault had come as a complete surprise.That didn't mean victory was complete, however. The Federals still only held two small enclaves on the far side of the Rappahannock, and not in any great force. If the Mississippians rallied and counterattacked, it was not at all certain these small enclaves could be held. Reinforcements were sent across the river to help hold the bridgeheads already won, and to expand them if possible. The New Yorkers at the middle crossing were reinforced by the remainder of their regiment and stood firm, allowing the engineers to finish the bridge at that site. At the upper crossing, Colonel Hall determined to get his entire brigade across to the Fredericksburg side and drive the Confederates from the town. The stage was set for the bloodiest urban combat of the Civil War.Among the troops that filled out the balance of Hall's Brigade were two veteran regiments from Massachusetts, the 19th and 20th Infantry. These regiments had been engaged in virtually every major campaign of the Army of the Potomac since the fall of 1861. Both regiments were fresh from the debacle at Antietam, where their entire division had been ambushed on the left flank and routed. The men who remained were steady, tough, and resolute.The 20th Massachusetts in particular had a reputation as a hard fighting outfit. It was known through the army as "the Harvard Regiment," for the number of alumni and students in its ranks who hailed from that venerated Boston institution. The regiment had repeatedly proved the Confederate myth of "soft, citified Yankees" a baseless slander, and they would do so again on this day.No sooner had the pontoons that delivered the 7th Michigan across the Rappahannock returned to the Stafford side than Colonel Hall put several companies of the 19th Massachusetts in them and directed them across to shore up the Michiganders. These Bay Staters got across the river in short order, and moved into the buildings to the right of the intersection of Hawke and Sophia street, expanding the bridgehead a block north to Pitt Street. Satisfied that he had enough men on the Fredericksburg side to push into town, Hall gave the command to press on towards the next cross street, Caroline Street.Caroline Street would prove a far tougher nut to crack than the waterfront.Barksdale had brought forward all the troops he could muster within the town itself and concentrated them in the buildings at the intersection of Caroline and Hawke Streets. These Rebels concealed themselves in the houses, yards, barns, and basements along the street, such that the advancing Federals could hardly see where they were being shot from. The advance of the 7th Michigan and 19th Massachusetts quickly stalled against this formidable position.Colonel Hall called on Captain George N. Macy of the 20th Massachusetts to break the stalemate and storm the intersection. Hall and Macy decided to use the 335 men of the 20th as a sort of battering ram by assaulting the intersection in a column of companies, such that the depth of the formation was far broader than its width. At the head of the column making the assault would be Captain Henry Livermore Abbott, acting as the Major that day due to the heavy loss sustained at Antietam a few months earlier. Also leading men into action that day was Captain and future Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Future Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., then a Captain in the 20th MassachusettsCaptain Henry Livermore Abbott of the 20th MassachusettsWith bayonets fixed in the diminishing light of the late afternoon, the 20th Massachusetts rushed up Hawke Street towards the intersection with Caroline Street. As they did so, they predictably drew the bulk of the Confederate fire, and men began to drop in fearful numbers. Once they reached the intersection itself, their dense formation was exposed to fire all along Caroline Street. Captain Abbott, at the head of the column, watched in horror as his command melted away. Abbott himself would lead a charmed life this day, surviving this harrowing combat and the charge on Marye's Heights a few days later without so much as a scratch. Private Josiah F. Murphy, in the ranks not far from Abbott, was not so fortunate."We lay under the banks of the city, and as soon as the troops began to cross [the finished pontoon bridges], we were ordered forward. Our company formed in two platoons of about thirty men each at the lower end of [Hawke] Street and began to advance up the street. As soon as we came within sight of the Rebels, who were concealed within every house and behind every fence, they opened a terrible fire on us at short range, and our men began dropping at every point. Those struck in the vital parts dropped without a sound, but those wounded otherwise would cry out with pain as they fell or limped to the rear. But despite the terrible fire, we pressed on up the street. Where men fell and left a vacant place, other men stepped into their places, and although death stared us in the face, there was not a man who faltered. We had now arrived at the corner of a cross street called Caroline Street, and I, being on the left flank of the company, turned to look down the street to see if anything could be seen to fire at, and bringing my gun to the ready at the same time. At that moment, I felt a sharp stinging pain on the right side of my face, and presto! I knew no more. When I came to, I was lying on the ground where I had fallen, and the company had advanced a short distance up the street. The balls were still flying thick around me, and I realized I was wounded."“Fire on Caroline Street” by Don Troiani, depicting the assault of the 20th Massachusetts on the Caroline Street intersectionBy taking the lion's share of the Confederate fire, the 20th Massachusetts relieved some of the pressure on the 7th Michigan and 19th Massachusetts to their left and right, respectively, and these veterans were soon advancing in support. The fighting here was close in, house-to-house, and though it lasted only a few short minutes, it exacted a fearful price on both sides. After a few moments of this, it became clear to Barksdale that he had done all he could from this position. He ordered his Mississippians to extricate themselves from the Caroline Street buildings as best they could, and to reform a few blocks further west, near the floodplain.Map of the urban combat on December 11, 1862 in FredericksburgNow that the pontoon bridges had been finished, the town of Fredericksburg was soon flooded with Yankees. The remaining regiments of Hall's Brigade, the veteran 42nd and 59th New York and the rookie 127th Pennsylvania, were soon on scene in support of the Bay Staters and Michiganders. Several regiments of Brigadier General Joshua T. Owens' Philadelphia Brigade had come over on the bridges as well, and they were sent to expand the bridgehead to the south. They made contact with a few Mississippians from the 21st Infantry around the Market House, and a sharp exchange of fire ensued. The intensity quickly subsided here, however, as the Mississippians were on there way out of town and back to the main line on Marye's Heights.Barksdale covered his retreat by posting a detachment of the 21st Mississippi in a few buildings on the far western edge of town, with orders to hold position until after dark, but initiate no further combat on their own. The detachment was commanded by Lieutenant Lane Brandon. Brandon, interestingly, was a graduate of Harvard University, and when he took a few of the Federals in his front prisoner and asked them who he was, he was startled to learn that his old friend Henry Abbott was in command of them.Instead of being happy his friend was still alive, or hesitant to engage the enemy for fear of injuring or killing him, Brandon was instead incensed at the idea of having to give ground to him. Eyewitnesses describe Brandon as completely losing his head at this revelation, and in this state he deliberately disobeyed Barksdale's instructions and ordered his men to attack. Another short but intense firefight resulted from Brandon's recklessness, which only ended when Brandon was placed under arrest and his men ordered to disengage. By this time, darkness had fallen, and the remaining Mississippians in Fredericksburg took their leave.A day of firsts had come to a close.Both sides had a strong claim to victory. Barksdale, with only around 1,500 men, had held up the advance of the entire Army of the Potomac for a full day, allowing Robert E. Lee more than enough time to concentrate his forces at Fredericksburg in preparation for the Federal assault that would surely come. Burnside, although thoroughly frustrated by yet another attempt at speed and surprise being frittered away, had to commend his troops for an impressive performance. They had just crossed a river under enemy fire and driven him from an imposing urban position. Both of those things had never been done before in American history.The butcher's bill for the day's action is hard to determine with any precision. Because many of the units involved in the contest on December 11 were engaged again in the far larger and bloodier assaults on December 13, there is no real way to differentiate the losses from each day. Henry Livermore Abbott and some others in the 20th Massachusetts, which had lost more than any other unit by far, calculated that their loss on the 11th amounted to at least 97 men of the 335 engaged, with perhaps up to 113. Between the actions on December 11 and the assault on Marye's Heights on December 13, the 20th Massachusetts lost a staggering 175 men and officers at the Battle of Fredericksburg, out of 335 men engaged. The 50th New York Engineers, which certainly suffered all its losses on the 11th, lost eight men killed and 48 wounded. Total Federal losses were probably on the order of around 500 men killed, wounded, or captured.A report of casualties in Lafayette McLaws' Division indicates that the entire division lost a total of 244 men on December 11. According to that report, 29 men were killed, 151 wounded, and 64 were missing. There can be little doubt that the vast majority, if not every last one of these casualties, came from Barksdale's Brigade, as it was the only unit of the division engaged that day.A few of the leaders who played key roles in the contest on this day would see their luck run out before the war ended. William Barksdale, still in command of this same brigade of Mississippians, was shot in the chest in Longstreet’s assault on July 2, 1863, and died of his wounds the following day. Henry Livermore Abbott, who lived a seemingly charmed life on Caroline Street and at many other places, pressed his luck too far at the Battle of the Wilderness on May 6, 1864. Encouraging his men to fight while lying down, Abbott remained standing and took a bullet to the abdomen. He died a few hours later, just 22 years old. Norman J. Hall was wounded a few days later in the assault on Marye’s Heights, but survived. He returned to command this Brigade at Gettysburg, where it helped turn back Pickett’s Charge. The hard campaigning after Gettysburg and his Antietam and Fredericksburg wounds combined to deteriorate his health. He retired from active service in May 1864, and never rejoined the Army of the Potomac. He died at the age of 30 on May 26, 1867.Once the Army of the Potomac launched its grand assaults on Marye's Heights on December 13, the events of December 11, 1862 took a permanent back seat. The Battle of Fredericksburg, in memory, became the story of the massive wastage of life and abject failure of those assaults, and the innovation and success on December 11 were almost totally forgotten. It has to stand as one of the most overlooked engagements of the Civil War.