A Forgotten American Hero: Capt. John B. Page

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Today the general public continues to be fascinated by the American Civil and Revolutionary Wars, while such conflicts as the War of 1812 or the Mexican-American War are in many cases ignored. But those less-known wars were significant in both national and international affairs. By the time the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed with Mexico on February 2, 1848, more than 100,000 Americans had served, resulting in some 1,500 battle casualties and almost 11,000 deaths from disease and exposure.

President Zachary Taylor

Military or political notables such as Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, Zachary Taylor, and many other famous officers obtained their first important "trial by fire" in the Mexican-American War.  Though many soldiers gained national notoriety at the time, others were completely ignored or largely forgotten by both historians and the general public. One such individual is Captain John B. Page.

Page was born in Maine in 1795 and became a lieutenant in the Federal Army in February of 1818. He was involved in implementing the "Indian Removal" policies of the government in the South, specifically with the Creek and Seminole peoples, for whose plight he expressed empathy in both word and deed. He was eventually transferred to the 4th Infantry, and on April 30, 1830, was raised to the rank of Captain.  Page later became involved in the Mexican-American War, serving under "Old Rough & Ready" General Zachary Taylor, head of the U.S. forces and later the 12th president of the United States.

Battle of Palo Alto

The first significant engagement between American and Mexican forces occurred a few miles north of what is now Brownsville, Texas, on May 8, 1846. Known as the Battle of Palo Alto, Capt. Page's 4th Infantry was supporting an artillery unit commanded by Major Samuel Ringgold, whose first wife, Maria, had been the daughter of Revolutionary War General  John Cadwalader of Philadelphia.

What is described in contemporary sources as a "perfect hurricane of grape and canister" soon fell among the forces of Page and Ringgold, resulting in the death of the latter. Page was not killed in battle, but it is reported that his face was injured, described as having "a cannonball tearing off the lower part...."  Ulysses S. Grant, who was also serving in the U.S. 4th Infantry during the battle, was an eyewitness to the events. Writing home to his wife Julia and to a John W. Lowe, on May 11 and June 26 respectively, he remarked how one 9-pound shot had taken a man's "head off," while another had "broke in the roof of" the mouth of Capt. Page as well as "nocked the under Jaw entirely away...The under jaw is gone to the wind pipe and the tongue hangs down upon the throat. He will never be able to speak or to eat."

Brigadier General Zachary Taylor, in his official report of the Battle of Palo Alto, mentioned on May 16, 1846, how Capt. Page had been "seriously wounded." The Philadelphia Public Ledger, on June 15, 1861, reprinted a soldier's narration of the scene, stating how a "six pound shot carried away the lower jaw of Capt. Page...The blood of poor Page was the first blood I saw; he was knocked down in the grass, and as he endeavored to raise himself, he presented such a ghastly spectacle that a sickly, fainting sensation came over me...."

The wound and fate of Capt. Page soon became one of national interest and concern. From May through July, newspapers throughout the country, including those in Philadelphia, reported about the health and potential recovery of Page. On June 13, 1846, the Philadelphia Sun ran the heading: "POOR CAPTAIN PAGE!!! Who has not shed the sympathetic tear over his deplorable condition! From one end of the land to the other, the wonder has been universal, that the unfortunate soldier could have lived for a day, with a large portion of his face carried away by a Mexican shot!!"

Newspapers reported about Capt. Page's grief-stricken wife as  well, and of her travails and travels from Baltimore to make it to the side of her wounded husband, which she eventually succeeded in doing. Though hope was continually expressed toward his survival, the inevitable occurred.  Niles Weekly Register for August 8, 1846, recorded how near Cairo, Illinois, on July 12, "Capt. Page breathed his last" on board the steamer Missouri, though a Dr. W. W. Mercer had been "unremitting in his attention" toward the soldier.  Page's remains were interred at the Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis on July 13, 1846.

Capt. Page would not be completely forgotten.  Present-day Page County, Iowa, was named in his honor.

Copyright 2008 The Historical Society of Pennsylvania. All rights reserved.

'Looking for the Drowned Dead: With a Loaf of Bread and Mercury?'

An antiquated custom, which at one time was popular both in Europe and the United States, was the search for individuals who had drowned by using 'quicksilver,' an archaic term for the element mercury.

The famed American writer, Mark Twain, in his familiar work, Huckleberry Finn, relates an example of the superstition of local villagers in Missouri, searching for a drowned corpse, by placing quicksilver in a loaf of bread. This was then thrown into the water near the site where the deceased individual's body was believed to have been submerged. Purportedly, the corpse would then float to the water's surface and thus be retrieved by the seekers.

An early example of the above belief can be found in a prestigious London publication, that of The Gentleman's Magazine, for April of 1767. An inquistion "on the body of a child," was taken at Newbury in Berkshire, the one year old having "fell into the river Kennet, and was drowned." The account continues by stating how the body "was discovered by a very singular experiment...a two-penny loaf, with a quantity of quicksilver was put into it, was set floating from the place where the child, it was supposed, had fallen in, which steered its course down the river...before a great number of spectators...The loaf suddenly tacked about, and swam across the river, and gradually sunk near the child, when both the child and loaf were immediately brought up, with grablers ready for that purpose."

Newspapers throughout the United States during the 19th century, also printed examples of drowned persons being found by the same procedure as discussed in English publications. For example, the National Intelligencer republished an incident recorded in the Pennsylvania paper, the Spirit of the Times and Carlisle Gazette, on April 13th, 1819, stating how a "young lad about 16 years old...the son of Simon Nichols (then sheriff of Montgomery County, Maryland), who lived then with Mr. Robert Peter, not knowing how to swim, slipped when bathing, into a deep place in the Potomac...After several unsuccessful attempts to recover the body...," all was "in vain." 

The Intelligencer goes on to record, that "some persons present mentioned the loaf of bread and quicksilver. It was procured and put into the river; after moving some small distance where it was put in, the body of the drowned person, bounced up near the loaf---I say bounced, because it rose with force, so that ten or twelve inches of the body came above the water, and again sunk to the level...There are at least a dozen persons now living who know the fact and were eyewitnesses of it."

The editor or reporter of the above incident, claimed it had occurred, "at the close of the Revolutionary War...I was talking to an eyewitness about it, not three weeks ago."

The Daily National Intelligencer, published in Washington, D.C., for March 19th, 1819, referred as well to a similar event, published in Vol.3, No.3, of Dr. Baldinger's Medical Magazine, which recounted how a university student had drowned, whose body could not be located. A passerby informed the searchers to "procure a large loaf, to scoop out part of the crumb, and fill in the cavity with quick-silver; he then directed them to throw this quick-silver pye upon the current, and averred that it would be stationery at the place where the person drowned was lying.  They followed his advice, and actually found the body."

Entitled, 'Strange But True,' the Germantown, Philadelphia (PA) Telegraph, for November 4th, 1863, related an incident which had transpired at Terre Haute, Indiana, after a bridge had collapsed, drowning a number of persons. All the bodies were retrieved but one, that of a 'Miss Thralls.'  Searchers were about to give up the attempt to locate her corpse, when the suggestion was made to place "quicksilver in a loaf of bread," then by "putting it in the water it would stop directly over the body."

A loaf of bread was then filled with "over two ounces of quicksilver,"  then thrown into the water some fifty feet above the bridge. It then "floated down in the current...suddenly stopped, and circling around, was apparently about to sink, when a gentleman in a boat caught it, and grappling hooks being put down, the body was found directly beneath," in from eight to ten feet of water."

Many other accounts exist in American newspapers of this method of discovering drowned persons, at least as late as 1872.  Whether such methods were truly effective or are simply examples of superstious folklore will be left up to the reader. The above renditions of the practice simply show once again, the fascinating and mysterious information which can be found about early America here at The Historical Society of Pennsylvania.