On June 20, 1897, The Salt Lake Tribune opined: “Not many years ago the bicycle was looked upon as a mere toy, a kind of dandy-horse, and the riders were regarded as fit subjects for pity. That time, however, is a thing of the past.” The paper was not just talking about the growing trend of bicycle clubs forming throughout the nation, but about a specific, and rather extraordinary, bicycle trip.
In August of 1918, as the armies of Europe neared exhaustion, American troops of the 28th “Keystone” division were thrown into a nearly forgotten battle that fully represented the horrors of the War to End All Wars.
Of the vaunted ironclad warships of the US Civil War perhaps the mightiest and most terrifying was the confederate ram Tennessee. On August 5, 1864, she would be put to the test in the largest naval engagement of the war, an engagement that defined the divided loyalties of the War of the Rebellion.