Stacey Roberts
Bio
Stacey Roberts is an author and history nerd who delights in the stories we never learned about in school. He is the author of the Trailer Trash With a Girl's Name series of books and the creator of the History's Trainwrecks podcast.
Stories (22/0)
Keep Your Pants On
One privilege of rank is getting to keep your pants on. American Major General Mark Clark was on a top-secret mission in North Africa in 1942. A British submarine had brought him and several other Allied officers to meet with the commander of the French army in Algiers. Clark was there to persuade General Charles Mast, the French commander, not to resist the planned American invasion of North Africa, codenamed Operation Torch. French forces had been under German authority since the Nazis had invaded France two years earlier, so it wasn’t clear whose side they would be on. The officers met in an isolated villa on the coast, and General Mast agreed to Clark’s plan. If Mast’s cooperation was found out by the Germans, he would have been executed for treason.
By Stacey Roberts3 years ago in Humans
What to Call George Washington
No one ever really knew what to call George Washington. During the Revolution, the British refused to address him as anything other than “Mr. Washington,” as if he were some kind of accounting clerk instead of the commander of an army that, from time to time, gave the world’s foremost military power a whupping.
By Stacey Roberts3 years ago in FYI
History's Trainwrecks
What kind of nerd do you want to be when you grow up? There are so many choices: role-playing games, science fiction, chess, Renaissance festivals, comic books, and many more. The number of ways open to me to avoid popularity and the chance of ever touching a woman recreationally seemed without limit.
By Stacey Roberts3 years ago in FYI
Don't Lose Your Cool
Some temper tantrums can change history. The Roman Empire of the 4th century AD wasn’t doing very well at all. Constantine the Great managed to consolidate the empire under his rule, make Christianity the official religion, and move the capital to Constantinople, which was more strategically located. However, Constantine was a brutal ruler and father (he boiled his first wife to death, killed his oldest son, and ordered his name stricken from the historical record). His three remaining sons, raised in this cutthroat political environment, inherited the empire after his death and were immediately at each other’s throats, sparking civil wars that raged for sixteen years until Constantius II emerged as sole emperor in 353.
By Stacey Roberts3 years ago in FYI
You Can't Fire Me
The Secretary of the Treasury had to resign four times before Abraham Lincoln finally accepted. Salmon P. Chase was a contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 1860 and like the other heavy hitters who ran against the Illinois “country lawyer”, Chase believed himself to be far superior and better qualified. After his victory in the presidential election, Lincoln appointed most of his rivals for the nomination to his Cabinet, making Chase Secretary of the Treasury.
By Stacey Roberts3 years ago in FYI
It's Who You Know
Having the right drinking buddy can be good for your career. The third century AD Roman Empire was in trouble. A fifty-year period saw 26 claimants to the Imperial throne, barbarian invasions, economic contraction, plague, natural disasters, and a split of the Empire into three separate territories. Not for nothing was this historical period called “The Crisis of the Third Century.”
By Stacey Roberts3 years ago in FYI
Keep Your Pants On
One privilege of rank is getting to keep your pants on. Major General Mark Clark was on a top-secret mission in Algiers in 1942. A British submarine had brought him and several other Allied officers to meet with the commander of the French army in North Africa. Clark was there to persuade General Charles Mast, the French commander, not to resist the planned American invasion of North Africa, codenamed Operation Torch. French forces had been under German authority since the Nazis had invaded France two years earlier, so it wasn’t clear whose side they were on. They met in an isolated villa, and General Mast agreed to Clark’s plan. If Mast’s cooperation was found out by the Germans, he would have been executed for treason.
By Stacey Roberts3 years ago in FYI
Stick In The Mud
Sometimes a Republic on its way to becoming an empire could really use an intractable stick-in-the-mud to run things. Cato the Elder was a simple fellow of simple tastes. He farmed his estate with his own field hands, dressing and eating the way they did. His penchant for tough living gained the admiration of his neighbors, who often enlisted his support to settle disputes, which sparked his career as an orator.
By Stacey Roberts3 years ago in FYI
Temper, Temper
If one more bad thing happened today, Mary Todd Lincoln was going to lose it. She had invited herself along on Abraham Lincoln’s trip to Union army headquarters at City Point, Virginia. Julia Grant, wife of commanding general Ulysses S. Grant, had suggested to her husband that he invite the President to come visit. She had been “struck by constant newspaper reports of the exhausted appearance of the President” and thought a break from Washington would do him good. Grant worried about the protocol involved in sending an invitation when the President could go where he liked whenever he wanted, but he sent a note to Lincoln in March, 1865 suggesting that “the rest would do you good.”
By Stacey Roberts3 years ago in FYI
I'll Go When I'm Good And Ready
General George McClellan was outnumbered. At age thirty-four, he was an internationally-respected military thinker and strategist (except where the cavalry was concerned; he only wanted them for guards and advance patrols. However, his invention—the McClellan saddle--was in continuous use from 1859 until the horse cavalry was disbanded in World War II. The Confederate cavalry made widespread use of it after 1863. Thanks, George).
By Stacey Roberts3 years ago in FYI
