Perhaps the most pathetic thing about Trump's fake Civil War battlefield on his golf course....

[Tommy_Carcetti]

....is the "historical marker."



First of all, it's not an official Historical Marker erected by the state. That would look like this:



It's Trump's own marker, made by whomever Trump commissioned (and likely short changed) to put up at his own club.

Secondly, the "River of Blood" thing is just laughably bad fake history. The whole marker sounds like something some smarmy 12 year old kid versed in the art of bullshit would just make up off the top of his head, i.e., "On your left you have the Petco where Michael Jackson bought his pet monkey. True story, he actually went into the store with Marlon Brando, who himself walked out with 15 ferrets. I saw it with my own two eyes. You can ask my friend Bobby if you don't believe me."

Or it sounds like something Ron Burgundy from the movie Anchorman would say, i.e. how "San Diego" translates to "Whale's Vagina" or how "diversity' is "an old wooden ship from the Civil War."

But I think the most laughable thing at all is the fact that Trump insisted he include his own quote on the marker: "It is my great honor to have preserved this important section of the Potomac River!" Complete with an exclamation! Mark! To show! Enthusiasm!

Nothing says narcissistic blowhard quite like insisting you include your own quote and name on a historic marker of something that supposedly (but not really) happened over 150 years ago.

Thankfully, it's highly dubious that any soldiers in the Civil War actually died on the site of Trump's golf course. If they actually did, however, my spirit would be pissed as hell that the place where I drew my last breath was turned into some ridiculous vanity project for Donald Trump.

Donald Trump putting up a fake historical marker for a fake Civil War battlefield on his golf course and insisting it include his own name is perhaps the most Donald Trump thing you'll ever see.

[John1956PA]

1. Excellent post. Does anyone know what year the plaque was installed?

Yesterday, Scarborough on "Morning Joe" suggested that Trump was not always as detached from reality as he is now.

I wonder if the year in which the plaque was installed corresponds to the era in which Trump's behavior started becoming more aberrant.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

2. It would have to be sometime after 2009.

When Trump bought the course.

Someone actually put up a Wikipedia entry on the "River of Blood" monument. It's rather...biting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_of_Blood_(monument)

[John1956PA]

13. Thank you. That would be the same era in which Trump went "birther."

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Does anyone know what the 'heraldic shield' at the top is?

Is it something he nicked from a genuine organisation, or something he got made up for "Trump"? In which case, I think we need a competition for the motto ...

(ah, I see Wikipedia says it's the 'family crest'. I'll look for more about that)

[Tommy_Carcetti]

5. I think it's just the shield logo for the golf club itself.

http://www.trumpnationaldc.com/

Not an actual historical organization.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. Ironically, for a family with no military history at all, it has a spear and helmet

Their only brushes with the military were his grandfather being kicked out of Germany in 1905 for avoiding mandatory military service, and Trump also avoiding military service, by bogusly claiming a debilitating bone spur.

There are all sorts of things you could honorably put on a family crest - something to do with building for the Trumps, for instance. But Trump decided to deceive, and claim a non-existent military link.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. It's made up, of course.

When the real estate developer announced plans for a golf resort in Aberdeen, Scotland, he began promoting the project with a coat-of-arms that someone in the Trump Organization designed: a shield with three chevrons and two stars, with a helmet above the shield and a crest of a lion waving a flag (a remarkable feat for an animal that lacks opposable thumbs). I know how to describe the various parts of the crest because Scotland takes its coats-of-arms very seriously. So seriously that one must register a coat-of-arms (which applies only to an individual, not a family), and the cost of registration increases as you add various elements (like that helmet). Trump was using an unauthorized coat-of-arms, and Scotland got mad.

Let's note that Trump is not entirely Scottish. As TV host John Oliver made famous last year, Trump's family name was originally Drumpf, via his paternal grandfather, who immigrated from Germany. Trump's mother was born in Scotland, but she was a MacLeod by birth. The MacLeods have a crest, but it shows a cow surrounded by a belt or something and, critically, doesn't include the word Trump.

So Trump made his own coat-of-arms (which is different than a crest) and started using it, and Scotland got upset and demanded he stop using it until it was registered. Trump registered the coat-of-arms, and four years later (such things don't progress rapidly, it seems) was granted the right to use it.

Read the rest, it's funny.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/24/donald-trumps-made-up-coat-of-arms-reveals-his-electoral-strategy-never-concede/?utm_term=.f7a7a6d399d1

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. I wonder if he'll put up a monument to the Bowling Green massacre, too?

[BSdetect]

7. In all fairness he probably thinks he took part and survived with a medal for bravery

[Tommy_Carcetti]

8. Of course, it's easier if someone just gives him a medal instead.

Because he always wanted one.

[SwissTony]

9. The spot is called "The Rapids" but the river looks broad and serene.

Hard to see how it could acquire such a name. And it would have been a might BIGLY job to reconstruct it.

[MousePlayingDaffodil]

12. This (rather droll) blog post . . .

. . . sheds some additional light.

And I believe the "rapids" designation comes from a stretch of the river a relatively short distance further south of Lowe's Island (where Trump National is located). There, the Potomac is fairly wide, but it's rather shallow, which is why a 19th-century river crossing ("Rowser's Ford&quot was to be found in that vicinity.

[link:https://markerhunter.wordpress.com/2015/11/25/november-24-1861-lowes-island/|

[SwissTony]

14. Many thanks for the post.

Seems the "history" was even more fantasy than I suspected.

[MousePlayingDaffodil]

15. I take a certain interest in this . . .

. . . because, as it happens, I live -- "as the crow flies" -- only some 10 kilometers from Lowe's Island/Trump National . . . albeit on the other side of the river, in Maryland.

While the blogger here, Craig Swain, did not specify further what he learned regarding the "local historians" who apparently told Trump what he "wanted to hear" regarding the faux history of the site, I wonder whether there was some conflation going on. Up the river from Lowe's Island, approximately 17 kilometers, there was a fairly small ("small," by later Civil War standards) but bloody engagement known as the Battle of Ball's Bluff.

Fought on October 21, 1861, very early in the war, the battle was essentially a fiasco for the Union Army -- i.e., over 220 killed, another 220 or so wounded, and over 500 captured, compared to 36 Confederates killed and another 117 wounded.

Of possible significance here, it is said that the bodies of a number of the Union dead, who were killed while frantically trying to cross back over the Potomac into Maryland once the rout was on, were not recovered at the site of the battle but, rather, floated down the river -- past Lowe's Island -- some as far as Washington, D.C. That's a pretty grisly image, to be sure, and I've wondered whether that's what gave rise to the "River of Blood" appellation in somebody's colorful (if inaccurate) telling of the alleged significance of the Lowe's Island site.

One can easily imagine Trump, being informed of this vivid, if unrelated, occurrence, "relocating" the incident to his eponymous golf course. It would seem to fit the way he, um, thinks.

[SwissTony]

17. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the fascinating history

I've never been to the US, but love recent history. You can here literally the words from people who witnessed, fought, died, "all of the above" during these events

I thank you.

And Trump...I have a headache...

[MousePlayingDaffodil]

19. Well, you're certainly welcome . . .

My father was a Civil War history buff, and I share that interest to a certain degree.

For me, the really offensive part of Trump and his "fake history" plaque is not so much that the claims are altogether fabricated -- in reality, that entire stretch of the Potomac River from Rowser's Ford upstream to White's Ford and beyond, does have historical significance, as it was the scene of numerous crossings by both the Union and Confederate armies during the war -- but that Trump seizes on that fact solely in his warped pursuit of self-aggrandizement.

Trump is truly a deplorable person. The United States disgraced itself in electing him President.

[FSogol]

10. He probably got a huge tax break for the scam. n/t

[gratuitous]

16. Typical Trump self-aggrandizing bullshit

The only person reliably identified on the plaque is - you guessed it - Donald John Trump. The bullshit starts from the first words, "Many great American soldiers, both of the North and South." Really? What made them great, Donald? Who were they? Which armies did any of them fight for? Who killed all those great American soldiers? When did this terrible event happen? Who dubbed that stretch of the Potomac "the River of Blood"? When did they start calling it that?

This plaque should be labeled as having been placed by the Ozymandias Historical Society.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

18. It's a river of bullshit instead