William Henry Chase Whiting

William Henry Chase Whiting 1825-65, Confederate general in the American Civil War, b. Biloxi, Miss. He served in the U.S. army until Feb., 1861, when he resigned and entered the Confederate service; there he rose to the rank of major general. As chief engineer to Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, Whiting distinguished himself at the first battle of Bull Run (1861). He fought in Stonewall Jackson's command in the Seven Days battles (1862). Appointed (Nov., 1862) commander of the district around Wilmington, N.C., he made Fort Fisher one of the strongest Confederate fortifications. He was wounded and captured when Union forces finally seized the fort in Jan., 1865, and died a prisoner in New York.

Lane, William Henry (1825?–52), dancer. An African American, probably born in New York, he first attracted attention in the early 1840s with his superb jigs and other dances at a hall in the notorious Five Points district where he performed as Juba or Master Juba. He was considered for a time the major rival to Master John Diamond, the young white dancer, and is said to have bested him in several challenge dances. Lane performed in 1846 with White's Serenaders, a minstrel band, but in 1848 left for England, where he died.

White Ship. Its wreck on 25 November 1120 destroyed Henry I's plans for the succession, because his only legitimate son William died aged 17 in the disaster. An immediate second marriage to Adela of Louvain produced no male heir, so, in 1126, Henry nominated his daughter, the Empress Matilda, as his successor. The White Ship was sailing from Normandy to England, on one of the many routine voyages made necessary by the cross-channel Anglo-Norman realm, when it hit a rock in the Seine estuary. Two contemporary chroniclers say that the crew was drunk.

David Richard Bates