Frustration

The Internet - or internets, as I lovingly call this series of tubes - makes me very mad sometimes. Fairly often I will not post to here for a while due to lack of anything interesting to post about and then I will decide to actively pursue something interesting so that I am forced to write and not abandon my blog. So I turn to sites with databases of letters, newspaper articles, magazine articles and read around a bit until something somewhat obscure catches my eye. And then I will read all that the source has to offer on the topic and then search for more information. Well, today, I came across something that piqued my interest while reading "A Trip To The South" by the famous Alan Pinkerton:

...Here [in Nashville, Tennessee] also I came in contact with an army surgeon whose head was full of wild quixotic schemes for destroying the northern armies by other processes than that of legitimate warfare.
One of his plans I remembered was to fill a commissary wagon with whiskey, in which had been previously mixed a generous quantity of strychnine. The wagon was then to be broken and abandoned and left upon the road so as to fall into the hands of the Union soldiers. Of course the liquor would be consumed by the finders, and the valiant doctor with evident satisfaction to himself, but to the equally evident disgust of his companions, loudly vaunted his death-dealing and barbarous scheme...

Pinkerton's article goes on to say that later this doctor "fled in terror at the first fire" and was dishonorably discharged from the service.

So I was very curious as to who this man was and other information about him. But a Google search turned up nothing except an excerpt from a book that I do not have access to on an online database. This happens to me quite often; I find something that I want to explore further but there is no more information online about the subject. So I am just forever wondering about details.

I did, however, learn much about strychnine. My newfound love for organic chemistry is keeping me entranced.