Eye - 3 May 2019
From making Friends to being vocal
Making Friends in the Metro
Crossword enthusiasts tackling the clues in the Metro newspaper on 25 April spotted a quirky piece of inadvertent outreach.
‘Get on good terms and enrol people in the Quakers? (4,7)’ which, as Jane Laxton, of Birkenhead Meeting, correctly pointed out to Eye, is ‘Make Friends’.
Friendly artillery?
Eye reader Alan Fricker spied an attention-grabbing headline on the Amusing Planet website.
The title ‘Quaker guns of the American civil war’ quirked Eye’s quizzical brow.
The article went on to shed light on a form of military deception used during the American civil war, first used in 1780: ‘When the continental forces under the command of colonel William Washington attacked a fortified barn near Camden, South Carolina, where the Loyalists under colonel Henry Rugeley had barricaded themselves, the colonel asked his men to surround the barn and prepare a pine log that resembled a cannon.
‘He pointed the “cannon” towards the building and threatened to blow it away if the Loyalists didn’t surrender. Rugeley’s men meekly surrendered without a single shot having been fired… This was the first recorded incident of a “Quaker gun” – the name is a reference to the religious community of Quakers who believed in pacifism and nonviolence.’
The American Civil War: The definitive encyclopaedia and document collection shows that it became a popular tactic: ‘[In 1861] Confederate forces evacuated Munson’s Hill, Virginia, leaving their earthworks to an advancing Union force. When the Union soldiers reached the Confederate lines, they discovered two logs and one stovepipe guarding a shallow ditch rather than the three Parrot guns reported by Union scouts… In early 1862 [major general George] McClellan… refused president Abraham Lincoln’s repeated request that he advance south from Washington to Richmond, choosing to believe reports that he faced almost 100,000 Confederate troops at Manassas Junction, supported by more than 300 artillery pieces. In reality, his front was opposed by only 40,000 soldiers and a wide assortment of Quaker guns.’
Quakerly undercoats
A spring sprucing up of the Meeting house took place at Rochester Meeting recently, as can be seen in this photo (below) sent in by Jill Bruford Clarke, of West Kent Area Meeting.
She writes: ‘The front door open in welcome despite only wearing an undercoat of “Quaker Blue”.
‘The entrance path jetwashed. Irises in full bloom in the garden in March. Rochester Meeting is preparing to continue welcoming visitors.’
Being vocal
A Friend in Oxford reached out to Eye with word of a population boom in the Children’s Meeting.
They wrote: ‘In the month of April last year six families from Oxford Meeting gave birth to six little boys. Some of them are vocal in Meeting already, but we shall be fascinated to see how the children’s class evolves in the years to come.’
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