Da Hawg Frog Blog

Cpl. Isaiah Mays – Medal of Honor Recipient

Corporal Isaiah Mays was a member of Company B, 24th U.S. Infantry serving in the Arizona Territory in 1889. He entered the service at Columbus Barracks, Ohio. Corporal Mays was born in 1858 at Carters Bridge, Virginia. On May 11, 1889 while serving with the 24th Infantry Corporal Mays distinguished himself in mortal combat with robbers who set upon his convoy intent on robbing the Army of its payroll. On February 19, 1890 he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Benjamin Harrison.

Medal Of Honor, Indian Campaigns

Citation: Gallantry in the fight between Paymaster Wham’s escort and robbers. Mays walked and crawled 2 miles to a ranch for help

On May 11, 1889, in the corner of southeastern Arizona, not far from the tiny Mormon settlement of Pima, AZ, a band of highwaymen ambushed Army Paymaster Major Joseph Washington Wham and his buffalo soldier escort. Following a hard-fought battle, the bandits made off with more than $28,000. The money was never recovered. Eight of the twelve-man escort were wounded in defense of the army payroll, Sergeant Benjamin Brown refusing to give up his defense though shot in the abdomen and then wounded in both arms. Corporal Isaiah Mays, shot in both legs, walked and crawled two miles to a nearby ranch for help. Both men were awarded the Medal of Honor for their heroic, though unsuccessful defense of the payroll, and the remaining members of the escort received certificates of commendation.

President Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893) authorized the Medal of Honor to be awarded to US Army Corporal Isaiah Mays, Company B, 24th US Infantry

In 1923, Mays applied to the United States Government for a pension and was denied.

Mays was eventually committed to the Arizona State Hospital, which at the time housed not only the mentally ill but also tubercular patients and indigents with nowhere else to go. Mays died at age 67 and was buried in the Arizona State Hospital Cemetery, Phoenix, AZ. Mays died at the hospital 1925. Because of a fire in 1935, the hospital has no record of his actual burial site.

For decades after his death, Mays’ grave was marked only by a modest bricklike marker etched with a number. Mays might have been forgotten had it not been for the efforts of hospital staff and a small group of Arizona veterans who identified Mays as one of the state’s recipients of the nation’s highest military honor.

In 2001, Mays finally received a Medal of Honor headstone from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for his bravery 110 years earlier.

He is currently interred in a vacant lot near 25th St and McDowell Rd. This site was once the site of the AZ State Hospital cemetery.

On January 10, 2009 the Old Guard Riders of Arizona will hold a ride to raise the funds necessary to have this hero interred at Arlington. If you can’t ride, you can help support their effort.

I don’t know about the rest of my boomer buddies, but I’m getting awfully tired of a bunch of these new cusper generation running us down. It seems like all these lap top hugging do nothings have nothing better to do than blame the entire world situation on my generation. But I ask what have they done? All the great innovations of the past thirty years were brought about by the boomers. Then they try to move the markers to include those few creative people born in the 1950s to include them into their imagined “generation”. The cuspers seem to believe that these great social inventions have always been here. Get a clue morons.

As baby boomers lose their authority and appeal, generational power is shifting one notch down: to cuspers (born roughly 1954-1965), who arrived in style in 2008 with their first truly major figure, Barack Obama (born 1961).

George W. Bush, born in 1946 at the start of the postwar baby boom for which his generation is named, will leave office with the lowest approval ratings since Richard Nixon was president. As Thomas Friedman has written, Bush epitomizes what’s now seen as “The Greediest Generation.”

Who’s to blame for the economy going into serious decline? (Source: CNN)

So who do these airheads think voted Obama in anyway? How do they think this country got to the place in history that a black man became a viable presidential candidate? The decline, moron, is because of political complacency, something the boomers have never been. And Obama, well do you think that if we hadn’t marched and demonstrated for civil rights in the 1960s he would be our president elect today?

So what have the so-called cuspers given us? Generation Y of course.

Probably the best thing about this Christmas is that is our last with Bush and his criminal cabal wrecking the halls with bows of folly.

When it seems like American politics just can’t sink any lower along comes another opportunist to prove Will Rogers right again. Will said a long time ago, “once a man serves in a political office he is never good for honest work again.”

In a state where corruption has ruled for years, Rod Blagojevich may have just set a new record for malfeaseance. He was arrested this morning and thrown in the slam. I wonder if he got to speak with former govenor George Ryan while he was in there? Anyway the punk from Illinois was jailed on a 75 page indictment.

The governor, who appeared in court in a blue jogging suit, also had to forfeit his passport.

FBI agents arrested Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, early Tuesday on federal corruption charges related in part to the selection of President-elect Barack Obama’s successor to the Senate, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald declared Tuesday a “sad day for government.”

“Gov. Blagojevich has taken us to a new low,” he said. “This conduct would make [Abraham] Lincoln roll over in his grave.”

Fitzgerald said the government had bugged the governor’s campaign office and placed a tap on his home phone. (Source: CNN)

Investigation is nothing new for Blagojevich. He has been under close scrutiny for a long time now. As recently as yesterday he arrogantly boasted he had nothing to hide and invited anyone who wished to tape his conversations. Well, they did.

Now the big question is who is going to replace President-Elect Barrack Obama’s vacant Senate seat. The task of finding a replacement lies with the Governor in Illinois. And of course Blagojevich had it all covered. He offered the seat up on E-Bay for the highest bidder.

One big question now is whether Blagojevich retains the right to name Obama’s successor if he remains in custody or even under indictment. The answer is yes, according to Fitzgerald.

Jay Stewart, executive director of Chicago’s Better Government Association, agreed. He said Blagojevich retains the right to fill the senate vacancy until he’s out of office, which won’t happen unless he quits or is removed from office by impeachment.

At a press conference Tuesday, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat, said he wants the Illinois Legislature to act quickly to pass a law setting a special election to fill Obama’s seat, in order to prevent Blagojevich from making a tainted appointment or there being a lengthy vacancy in the Senate. (Source: CNN)

Blagojevich is a dirtbag. Reading all the charges against him you wonder how he was able to get elected twice as governor. Maybe he bought the job, that seems to be pretty normal in Chicago.

The breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering .They allege that (Ill. Gov. Rod) Blagojevich put a “for sale” sign on the naming of a United States Senator; involved himself personally in pay-to-play schemes with the urgency of a salesman meeting his annual sales target; and corruptly used his office in an effort to trample editorial voices of criticism…U.S. Atty. Patrick J. Fitzgerald in a news release this morning.