Cavalry

By this time next week, Ed Encina and I will be knee-deep in Winter Meetings muck, trying to decipher what's actually going on in the lobbies, bars and meeting rooms in Nashville. So I figured I'd open up the bar today and crank up the hot stove. As our columnist Peter Schmuck wrote Sunday , it wouldn't be a surprise if Orioles executive vice president Dan Duquette dangles one of the club's young starters in an attempt to land a position player with upside - someone who can play left field, first base or DH. Given what the Orioles have, and the hype that has surrounded them, you'd think Jake Arrieta, Zach Britton, Brian Matusz and Chris Tillman all maintain some value on the open market.

By this time next week, Ed Encina and I will be knee-deep in Winter Meetings muck, trying to decipher what's actually going on in the lobbies, bars and meeting rooms in Nashville. So I figured I'd open up the bar today and crank up the hot stove. As our columnist Peter Schmuck wrote Sunday , it wouldn't be a surprise if Orioles executive vice president Dan Duquette dangles one of the club's young starters in an attempt to land a position player with upside - someone who can play left field, first base or DH. Given what the Orioles have, and the hype that has surrounded them, you'd think Jake Arrieta, Zach Britton, Brian Matusz and Chris Tillman all maintain some value on the open market.

PAT RILEY used to tell his players every season, on the day the trade deadline passed, that they could stop waiting for help to arrive and start playing basketball again. "The cavalry isn't coming over the hill to save us," he'd say. Long before the first pitch at Camden Yards last night, Jim Beattie and Mike Flanagan told the cavalry to stay home -- and, in effect, told the Orioles that they were now on their own. That's not a terrible position to be in, Beattie said yesterday afternoon, offering a few reasons that didn't sound completely implausible.

100 Years Ago More horse power "Horses, Mares, Mules; Sold for Want of Use" was the headline of an ad in the Times : " 10 Mares, 15 Horses, 2 Mares in foal, 5 Top Wagons, 2 Trucks, lot of harnesses will be sold regardless of cost. 20 Days guarantee with each animal. Used by Chesapeake Oyster & Fish. Co., during the past season. apply at Stables 205 S. Paca St. Baltimore, Md. " Guess the auto was taking the animals' jobs and they were hoping to sell in rural Howard County, where original horse power was still in use. 75 Years Ago Rale against traffic More parking in downtown Ellicott City was the focus of an article in the Times that week: "Two Frame Buildings At Depot Yard To Be Razed In Near Future; Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Gives Thirty Days To Tenants - Parking Problem Of Town Will Be Aided By Improvement The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad has given notice to the two one-story frame buildings on Main Street at the Depot Yard in Ellicott City to vacate the premises within thirty days.

"My advance reached Gettysburg July 2, just in time to thwart a move of the enemy's cavalry upon our rear by way of Hunterstown after a fierce engagement, in which [Brig. Gen. Wade] Hampton's brigade performed gallant service, a series of charges compelling the enemy to leave the field and abandon his purpose. I took my position that day on the York and Heidlersburg roads, on the left wing of the Army of Northern Virginia," stated Maj. Gen. James Ewell Brown (J.E.B.) Stuart in his official report of the battle of Gettysburg.

On May 8, 1864, Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel, commander of the Union army in the northern Shenandoah Valley, sent out two strong cavalry patrols under Col. Jacob Higgins and Col. William H. Boyd from his base near Middletown, Va., to reconnoiter the approaches to New Market, Va., in preparation for his advance against the Confederates in that area. The Confederates soon learned of the patrols and took steps to foil them, helping to set the stage for the Union defeat at New Market on May 15. Brig.

Gettysburg was a classic infantry battle, but it also had a cavalry component, and one of the most famous units was Brig. Gen. George Armstrong Custer's Wolverines, composed of the 1st, 5th, 6th and 7th Michigan Cavalry regiments. Gen. Robert E. Lee, determined to break the Union center, sent Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart and his cavalry about three miles east of Gettysburg around to the Union right on the third day of the battle. Their instructions were to get into the Union rear, to break through, and to get into the pack trains and artillery reserves, according to Col. Edwin E. Bryant in "The Battle of Gettysburg," a paper that he presented on Oct. 4, 1893.

It is usually believed that cavalry played a very minor role in the Gettysburg campaign, but nothing could be further from the truth. According to Edward G. Longacre's book The Cavalry at Gettysburg, published in 1986, the brigades led by Confederate Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart and those of the Union's Brig. Gen. David McMurtie Gregg would take part in "one of the largest and most influential mounted battles ever waged in the Western Hemisphere." In the early morning of July 3, Stuart and Gregg eased their men into position.

OCT. 15 Noon: Camps open to public; Belle Grove Plantation open 1:30 p.m.: Formation 2 p.m.: Middletown Parade 4 p.m.: Tactical demonstration 7 p.m.: Descendants reception OCT. 16 9 a.m.: Camps open to public; battalion drills 10 a.m.: Belle Grove Plantation open; Confederate cavalry demonstration; ladies fashion show and tea 11 a.m.: Union artillery demonstration 12:30 p.m.: Formation 1:30 p.m.: 2nd Kernstown Battle 3:30 p.m.: Hospital demonstration...

Visitors to the Union Mills Homestead this weekend can walk into the Civil War.The 26th Volunteer Infantry, a Civil War re-enactment group, will live in history during a two-day encampment to mark the 131st anniversary of the days preceding the Battle of Gettysburg."

Mark C. Harrison, a noted Maryland breeder and trainer of Saddlebred and Tennessee walking horses, died Sunday of heart failure at Thomas Run Stables, his Bel Air farm. He was 87. Mr. Harrison, who was born into a family of Saddlebred owners in Montoursville, Pa., was raised on a horse farm. "His earliest memories of riding are leadline classes on his father's Saddlebreds, and he continued to show through his early years in the youth classes," according to a 2009 profile in The Equiery, a monthly information and advertising publication for Maryland horsemen.

In the crowd gathered Wednesday in Towson's Patriot Plaza on the eve of Veterans Day, a retired Army sergeant stood proudly at attention, during the presentation of colors, the National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance. Gordon Pinkney, whose 34 years of service include combat tours in Vietnam and Iraq, wore a cap that said "Buffalo Soldiers. " On it was a patch that depicted a cavalry man and read, "We can we will. " "Ceremonies like this show you all care," Pinkney said. "That is all any soldier wants to hear.

The Cavalry, the nickname former manager Dave Trembley gave to the organization's group of starting pitching prospects, has pretty much arrived, though not all its members have moved forward during the Orioles' brutal 2010 season. Brad Bergesen, a 24-year-old right-hander who was the Orioles' best pitcher last year, was sent back to Triple-A Norfolk with a 6.50 ERA. Chris Tillman, a 22-year-old considered one of baseball's top pitching prospects not long ago, could be joining the Tides shortly after he produced an 8.40 ERA in four starts with the Orioles.

Katherine D. Scarborough, a former teacher, genealogist and newspaper columnist who was active in patriotic and historic organizations, died Monday from multiple organ failure at her home in the Edenwald retirement community in Towson. She was 85. Katherine Streett Davis, who was known as Kay, was born and raised at her parent's Geneva Farm in Street. She was a 1942 graduate of Highland High School and earned an associate's degree from St. Mary's College. She attended the University of Baltimore Law School in the late 1940s, and earned a degree in mass communications from Towson State University in 1980.

Carroll County was a crossroads for both Union and Confederate troops en route to Gettysburg, where about 50,000 of them became casualties. To help mark that pivotal battle, Carroll County historians and tourism officials have set up a self-guided driving tour called "Roads to Gettysburg." The tour allows Civil War buffs to re-create the movements and events that made Carroll County a key location in the days before the battle. "A small but extremely important cavalry skirmish took place in Westminster on June 29, 1863," according to the Carroll County Visitor Center.

Scientists have shown they can enhance a plant's ability to signal for help when threatened by pests. Plants constantly send signals that attract their pests' predators, a little-known tactic intended to improve the plants' survival. For example, when potatoes, lima beans, cotton and dozens of other plants are damaged or under attack, they produce complex organic compounds known as terpenoids. The compounds attract predatory mites, parasitic wasps, spiders and aphids. Researchers call the predators "bodyguards."

[From the Richmond Enquirer] What humiliation has attended our cause in that Valley made gloriously historical by the lamented Jackson! From Lynchburg to Harper's Ferry, from the Ridge to the Alleghanies, where victory, and honor and glory once shed their charming blessings over our cause, there now hangs the gloomy cloud of defeat, disgrace and demoralization. It is often said, with a sigh, "The news from the Valley is not so bad as we expected." What was expected that could have been worse than the shameful defeat into which a victory was turned, not by the generalship of Sheridan, not by the valor of his infantry, not by the charge of his cavalry, but by the unaccountable but not less shameful and disgraceful panic of our own troops.

Abe Caylor, 104, an Army cavalry soldier during World War I and one of the nation's oldest military veterans, died Wednesday in Orting, Wash., relatives said. Enjoying the attention in his final years but tired of being asked his secret to growing old, Mr. Caylor once replied, "Work hard and mind your own damn business." On his 100th birthday, his photograph was shown on national television and he received a congratulatory telephone call from the White House. The next spring he was honored at a concert and Memorial Day ceremonies on the Capitol lawn.

On Sept. 11, 1862, Westminster is raided for the firts time during the Civil War. Confederate Col. Thomas Lafayette Rosser and the 5th Virginia Cavalry invaded Westminster without warning. Rosser made his headquarters at the home of John Brook Boyle. The cavalry stayed only one night. They left the next day and marched toward Antietam. --- Just South of Gettysburg, edited by Fredric Shriver Klein, p.23-24