Winter 1996, Issue 39

Article Abstracts and Supplements

When Good Men Do Nothing: The Murder of Albert Patterson
By Alan Grady

On the night of June 18, 1954, Alabama Senator Albert Patterson left his law office in Phenix City and headed home. Patterson, then the Democratic nominee for state attorney general, never reached his destination. As he approached his car, parked in a downtown alley, he was shot. Stumbling from the alley, Patterson collapsed in front of a dress shop and died. His son, convinced that the murder was due to his father's involvement in running the gangsters out of Phenix City and Russell County, embarked on a crusade to solve the mystery of his father's death. The trials that followed did little to convict a killer, although the publicity surrounding the case helped in a general clean-up of Phenix City.

Read the full text article here in Alabama Heritage: From the Vault.



Silver in Antebellum Alabama
By Edward Pattillo

Though some Alabamians have collected and treasured "Alabama-made" silver, evidence suggests that no silver was made in Alabama during the Antebellum period. Instead, many silver manufacturing firms in the Northeast sent shiploads of silver to retailers in the Deep South. These retailers would then stamp the silver with their own name, causing some modern silver collectors to mistakenly believe the silver was made in Alabama. Edward Pattillo stresses that Antebellum Alabamians knew the silver they bought in the state was brought in from somewhere else. The belief that the silver goods were made in local stores "has been a modern assumption."



Red Erwin and the Medal of Honor
By Judd A. Katz

On April 12, 1945, Henry "Red" Erwin, a radioman with the U.S. Army Corps, was en route to Koriyama, Japan on a bombing mission when the phosphorous bomb he had dropped through the plane's open chute turned, lifted, and exploded in his face. Three hundred feet above the Pacific, Erwin was instantly engulfed in flames. In an act of selflessness that would save the plane's officers and crew and earn him the Medal of Honor, Erwin grabbed the fifteen-hundred degree bomb, carried it through thick smoke to the cockpit, and hurled it from the plane, collapsing soon afterward. Military brass awarded Erwin the Medal of Honor only two days after he saved his crew. No one expected him to survive much longer. They just didn't know Red Erwin.



Northington General Hospital, Tuscaloosa
By Joanna Jacobs

During World War Two, Northington General Hospital in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was one link in an effective military medical network that stretched around the world. With one thousand beds, Northington's specialty was plastic surgery. Because of the destructive nature of war wounds, plastic surgery techniques were in great demand. Doctors at Northington were instrumental in developing new skin-graft techniques during the 1940s.