One James Calendar Irvine Moore
was born to a horsebreeding family
in Lexington, Kentucky, July of 1840.
His christening honored his forefathers.
On September 14, 1862, his unit
of 3rd Pennsylvania Volunteers
came under a hail of friendly fire
during a retreat at South Mountain.
The wounds he sustained earned
him a stay in the field hospital,
and so he did not die at Antietam
with all his fellows three days later.
The Quartermaster Sergeant
eventually returned to his unit,
saw action at Fredericksburg,
and then concluded the war
protecting the nation’s capitol.
In later years, he frequented
reunions of the Grand Army
and bred a cherished scion.
James Calendar Irvine Moore II
won fame and his fortune
manufacturing munitions
to abet Europe’s appetite
for death in the Great War—
before the influenza pandemic,
a side effect of that very war,
drew his life to an early end.
Prior to Junior’s passing, however,
he also fathered a favored son,
James Calendar Irvine Moore III,
using our second-nature nomenclature.
On the other hand: After the Civil War,
Rebecca Cooper Stackhouse married
James Calendar Irvine Moore, Senior,
and in addition to their cherished Junior,
she also gave birth to a female child
who was not named Rebecca Stackhouse II
and who did not later deliver a daughter
named Rebecca Cooper Stackhouse III
because we do not name our girls Junior.
Her other accomplishments are lost to us
as our language does not esteem our dams
in the same fashion it solemnizes sires.