Blue Gray Review | American Civil War more or less

no foolin’

Posted on April 12, 2024 by SUMPTER

April 1865: Libby prison in Richmond

Libby Prison was one of the places in Richmond. Virginia where the Confederate government housed Yankee prisoners. Last year I was surprised while glancing through a newspaper at the Library of Congress. I noticed what seemed to be an advertisement for Libby. The paper was published 28 years after the war ended. How could that be?

The National Tribune July 20, 1893 on page 3

As it turned out, the ad was for Libby Prison Museum in Chicago. And the museum was really Libby Prison, the same building that was in Richmond during the war. According to Chicagology, a group of Chicago businessmen bought the prison in 1888. They had it disassembled (600,000 bricks), shipped to Chicago, and then reassembled on Wabash Avenue. The museum housed Civil War artifacts and memorabilia, as well as some other exhibits. The museum operated until sometime in the late 1890’s when Libby was again disassembled. A new coliseum was built on the museum site.

c1992: Libby Prison in Chicago

According to the Digital Research Library of Illinois History Journal one of the leaders of the Libby project was Charles F. Gunther (aka “The Candy Man” and “The P.T. Barnum of Chicago”). When he was a boy, Gunther and his family moved to the United States from Germany. The family originally lived in the north, but Charles moved to Memphis around 1860 when he was about 23. He worked for an ice dealer, but

“Upon the outbreak of the Civil War, he was employed as purchasing agent and purser of the steamer “Rose Douglas” in the Confederate Service. Being captured when blockaded in the Arkansas River by Federal gunboats in Van Buren, Arkansas, ‘he was released in a prisoner exchanged and made his way north until he finally reached Peru [Illinois].'”

Mr. Gunther gradually became involved in the candy business and became a confectioner. Although his original building (with some rare artifacts) was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire, he eventually became very successful and purchased more Civil War (and other) memorabilia. Many of these artifacts were displayed in the Libby museum until Gunther decided to build a new coliseum on the museum site.

at the museum – tree stumps embedded with shells

shot and shell on display at Libby Museum

The Candy Man

There is a lot of information out there about the prison museum. Here are some examples. In a November 1994 American Heritage article William B. Meyer is critical of the commercial nature of Libby museum venture. You can see more photos at James E. Arsenault & Company; one of the pictures presumably shows a tour guide. The Chicago Time Machine – “The museum hired Civil War veterans as guides and displayed genuine Civil War artifacts alongside items of potentially dubious provenance – such as “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (said to be the home of the character that inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe), or what was alleged to be a snakeskin from the Garden of Eden.” Chicago History Resources’ The Bloody Evidence includes a bit more about Charles Gunther’s service on the Rose Douglas.

1889 museum catalogue

“132 twenty-ton cars”

just a few of the artifacts

From the Library of Congress: Libby photographed in Richmond April 1863; the July 20, 1893 issue of The National Tribune – the Libby ad is on page 3; the c.1892 photo of the street view of the museum from Views of Chicago – Libby Prison is behind the castle-like wall, the photo is number 99 in the book; War logs; Prisoners Reception Room’s shot and shell; there are three museum catalogs at the Library – the thumbnails above are from the 1889 catalog – cover, describing the move, partial list of the artifacts; the prison museum

From Wikipedia: the image of Charles F. Gunther

On Wabash Ave – prison behind the castle front

Posted in Aftermath, American Culture, Civil War prisons, Postbellum Society, Veterans | Tagged Charles Frederick Gunther, Chicago Illinois, Libby Prison, Libby Prison Museum, The Rose Douglas | Leave a comment

Cold Easter

Posted on March 31, 2024 by SUMPTER

Easter was on April 5th in 1874. In its April 11, 1874 issue Harper’s Weekly observed the holiday like this:

Arbutus: Spring’s offering for Easter-tide

Happy Easter!

Alice Arnold Crawford “was a 19th-century American author of poetry and short stories. She furnished articles in prose and verse for the leading publications of the day.” She died in September 1874 at the age of 24. She was born and buried in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. After her death A Few Thought For A Few Friends was published. It includes “The Forest Easter” and an ode to the “Arbutus.” The book is available at the Internet Archive

You can see the April 11, 1874 issue of Harper’s Weekly at HathiTrust.

Posted in 150 Years Ago | Tagged Alice Arnold Crawford, Easter | Leave a comment

Staunch in the Senate

Posted on March 11, 2024 by SUMPTER

150 years ago today U.S. Senator Charles Sumner died in his Washington, D.C. home. He had represented Massachusetts in the Senate since 1851. In its March 28, 1874 issue Harper’s Weekly praised Mr. Sumner for his strong anti-slavery leadership:

wouldn’t be co-opted

CHARLES SUMNER.

MR. SUMNER leaves no public man behind him with so close a hold upon the heart of the country. He was the last of the great triumvirate of antislavery Senators who succeeded that other trio of the earlier and darker epoch of which we speak in another column of this paper. The work of the later three, SEWARD, CHASE, and SUMNER, was incomparably greater and more beneficent than that of WEBSTER, CLAY, and CALHOUN. It is a curious fact that Mr. SUMNER took his seat in the Senate on the day that Mr. CLAY, the last of the elder three, left it forever. The two men typified the two eras of our politics. HENRY CLAY was the great compromiser. CHARLES SUMNER was one of the most uncompromising men that ever lived. The courtly, gay, plausible, fascinating cavalier, “HARRY of the West,” broken, saddened, and disappointed, faltered out of the chamber, and CHARLES SUMNER, young, towering in form, dauntless in mien, the indomitable Puritan, conscience incarnate in politics, entered, and the new and better Union entered with him. The very qualities in him that so often offended were indispensable to the time and the work. Iconoclasm like his was as much needed among the long-worshiped idols of the old temple of slavery as ever it was among the images upon which CROMWELL’S Ironsides fell.

That stern refusal to wince or bend, which opposed itself to the slave power as a cliff of granite fronts the wildest sea and dashes it into futile froth, was the great and memorable service of CHARLES SUMNER to his country. When slavery in Congress encountered him, it met for the first time that North, that American conscience, that American will, which was at last to overthrow it utterly, and redeem and regenerate the country. For the first time in the national arena slavery found itself opposed by a spirit as resolute and haughty as its own. It tried every means to subdue it, and tried in vain. By culture and taste and temperament Mr. SUMNER was peculiarly sensible to that social blandishment in which Southern society excelled, and which made Washington a Capua to many hardy Northern warriors. They came, perhaps, from some secluded rural home, unused to the charms and forces of society. Bashful in the new scene, and ill at ease, they found the most welcome relief amidst the graceful delight of drawing-rooms and in the frank hospitality of dining-rooms in which their pleasure and comfort seemed to be the chief study. In those magic circles the lines of political duty, the sense of right and wrong, which in the quiet home or among cool New England hills were so clear and positive, wavered and shifted, and often glimmered quite out of sight. The lotus was eaten at those feasts, SAMSON was shorn, and honest folks at home wondered what nepenthe in the air of Washington drugged the Northern brain and dulled its conscience. No man was more thoroughly equipped to enjoy all this to the utmost than SUMNER, and no influence in public affairs is more subtle and effective with men of his temperament. But he knew the Lamia, and he did not yield.

wouldn’t be terrified

And as it could not seduce, neither could it terrify him. He stood for years in the capital of the country – to our bitter shame a slave city – and he thundered against slavery words which were blows. His speeches were not bursts of rhetoric; they were, like those of DEMOSTHENES, orations. The trained advocates of slavery and its mere attorneys were amazed at the comprehensiveness of discourses that left them no escape, left them, indeed, only rage and denunciation. And long afterward, when the ablest lawyer in the Senate, REVERDY JOHNSON, was preparing the speech in which he justified his vote upon emancipation, he carefully studied all of SUMNER’S orations as the completest body of history and argument upon the whole subject. The hostility of slavery took its natural form. Often for months it was known, and Mr. SUMNER knew, that his life was in constant danger; and during the heat of the Kansas debate a few friends from Kansas then in Washington, who were aware of his personal peril, unknown to him, daily followed him when he left his house, armed – as he never was or would be – for his protection. At last slavery, by the hand of PRESTON BROOKS, struck him the blow that it hoped would be fatal. But after a long and weary struggle his sturdy constitution seemed to have thrown off all serious effects of it, and after resuming his seat in the Senate with a speech that showed all the old vigor, he bore his part in the great and final conflict. But although he lived eighteen years after BROOKS’S assault, it was clear to him toward the end, and to his friends, that he had never wholly rallied from the blow.

polarizing

The hostility of foes was not all that he withstood. His political and even many of his personal friends were impatient with him for the injury to the common cause which they feared from what they thought his want of moderation and tact. But those were his inestimable qualities, for they not only showed to slavery, as we said, the face of its real foe and future victor, but they stimulated and confirmed Northern sentiment by the spectacle of its uncompromising personification. There were censures of his taste, of his epithets, of his rhetoric, of his style, while he was doing a giant’s work in rousing and saving a nation. How many a critic points out the defects of St. Peter’s! And St. Peter’s remains one of the grandest temples in the world. He loved duty more than friendship, and he feared dishonor more than any foe. He measured truly the real forces around him, and he saw more clearly than any American statesman that ever lived the vital relation between political morality and national prosperity. The great acts of Republican legislation are thoroughly informed by the spirit of which he was the most fervent and comprehensive political representative. “Why, Mr. SUMNER, I am only six weeks behind you,” Mr. LINCOLN said to him, during the war. It was most fortunate for him that his career was cast at a time and upon a scene for which he was especially fitted, and he lived for a quarter of a century in the full view of friends and foes, doing his duty without a stain upon his fame. CHARLES SUMNER hated slavery, and slavery hated him. And because, in the long and terrible contest, he was so true and so steadfast, panoplied in principle, armed at every point, strong as conscience and pure as childhood, his name will be honored in the land so long as the descendant of a slave remains, or America loves liberty.

“Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,
Nor thought of tender happiness betray;
Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpast;
Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
Forever, and to noble deeds give birth,
Or he must fall,to sleep without his fame,
And leave a dead,unprofitable name,
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause:
And while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven’s applause.”

deathbed wish

In Richmond, Virginia the Daily Dispatch reported Mr. Sumner’s death om page one of its March 12th issue. The TIMON correspondent telegraphed the news. The senator apparently suffered from organal pectoris and was in such great pain from about 11:00 PM on March 10th that his doctors kept him on opiates. Most members of Congress called at his house during March 11th. According to TIMON, about the last words Sumner spoke were to Representative Dawes: “Tell Emerson I love and revere him.” The Harper’s Weekly portrait of Sumner above shows that on his deathbed he also said something like, “Do not let the civil rights bill fail.” This is backed up in a paragraph from the March 13th issue of the Daily Dispatch, which said Senator Sumner spoke the words to Representative Ebenezer R. Hoar. The Dispatch considered the civil rights bill a “new firebrand.”

Probably the most notorious event in Mr. Sumner’s Senate career occurred during the Bleeding Kansas debate. On May 19 and 20, 1856 Sumner delivered his “Crime Against Kansas” speech in which he denounced the Kansas – Nebraska Act and his colleagues who wrote the legislation – Stephen A. Douglas and South Carolinian Andrew Butler. Sumner said Butler’s mistress was the harlot Slavery and made fun of Butler’s speaking ability. Butler had recently suffered a stroke. Senator Butler was not present during the speech. Congressman Preston Brooks, Butler’s cousin, took offense, and on May 22nd Brooks severely injured by repeatedly caning Sumner on the head . It is said the incident further polarized the United States in the run-up to the Civil War. In its March 14, 1874 issue the Daily Dispatch criticized northern newspapers that used their eulogies of Sumner to rehash the caning and to stir up the North against the South.

Richmond’s Daily Dispatch March 12, 1874 (page 1)

Richmond’s Daily Dispatch March 13, 1874 (page 2)

Richmond’s Daily Dispatch March 14, 1874 (page 2)

In its April 4, 1874 issue Harper’s Weekly provided extensive coverage of Charles Sumner’s funeral and burial:

Sumner’s Senate chair

death and procession to the Rotunda

at the Capitol

library at the senator’s D.C. residence

lying in state in Boston

over the Charles

entering the cemetery

burial

I think Harper’s Weekly made a mistake about the date Sumner’s body was transported to the Capitol Rotunda. Based on telegraph reports printed in the March 14, 1874 edition of the Daily Dispatch (page 1), it looks like that happened on March 13th. The lavish illustrations in Harper’s April 4th issue reminded me of Life magazine when I was growing up.

Senator Sumner’s deathbed wish was granted. A version of the bill was enacted in 1875. The Supreme Court ruled that parts of the act unconstitutional in 1883.

I got all the material from the March 28 and April 4, 1874 issues of Harper’s Weekly from HathiTrust.

From the Library of Congress: the front page of the March 28, 1874 issue of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper; the deathbed scene per Currier & Ives – a Mr. Wormley was is one of the men pictured, read more about James Wormley at Streets of Washington, the hotelier was close friends with Charles Sumner;1874 issues of the Daily Dispatch – March 12th, March 13th, and March 14th; the statue at Boston’s Public Garden

From Wikimedia: the caning cartoon which has a “Factual error: In this print Brooks holds his gutta-percha cane by the knob. According to eyewitnesses, he repeatedly hit Sumner’s head with the massive gold knob, instead.”

at Boston’s Public Garden

Posted in 150 Years Ago, 150 Years Ago This Week, Postbellum Politics, Reconstruction | Tagged Andrew Butler, Charles Sumner, Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, Henry Laurens Dawes, James Wormley, Preston Brooks, Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Civil Rights Act of 1875 | Leave a comment

house still divided?

Posted on February 12, 2024 by SUMPTER

January 6, 1874

150 years ago Harper’s Weekly published a brief bio of a member of the 43rd Congress. From its February 14, 1874 issue of :

THE HON. ROBERT B. ELLIOTT.

Robert Brown Elliott

The South Carolina district that for many years sent JOHN C. CALHOUN to Congress is now represented in that body by the Hon. ROBERT BROWN ELLIOTT, who is of unmixed African blood. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1842, received his primary education at private schools, and afterward studied at Eton College, England, where he graduated in 1859. From Massachusetts he went to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1866, and began his new career there as a type-setter in the office of a newspaper edited by his present colleague, Mr. RANSIER. He has a natural gift for oratory, which has been cultivated by large experience on the stump. “His voice,” says one who has listened to his oratory, “is full and agreeable, and in his pronunciation he displays far less of the peculiarities of the negro dialect than many of the Southern white members. His sentences are constructed with an obvious regard for euphonious sound, and if any fault were to be found in his manner of speaking, it would be that he falls into too much of a cadenced delivery.”

Mr. ELLIOTT’s name was brought into prominence by his speech on the Civil Rights Bill, delivered on the 6th of January, in reply to Mr. HARRIS, of Kentucky. Those who heard him declared the speech to be the most remarkable effort yet made by a colored member of Congress. He read his remarks from manuscript, but this did not detract from their force as from that of Mr. STEPHENS’s speech of the day before, for he made use of all the orator’s art, voice, and gesture. He got a much more attentive hearing from the House than did the great Georgian, and was more than once applauded by the members, whose hand-clappings were at once echoed from the galleries, packed with colored people. When he sat down the applause was deafening, and many members rushed forward to shake his hand and congratulate him. A portrait of Mr. ELLIOTT is given on the preceding page.

According to the South Carolina Encyclopedia, Peggy Lamson, the modern biographer of Robert B. Elliott, “believes that he was born on August 11, 1842, in Liverpool, England, of unknown West Indian parents. Contemporary accounts state that he was born in Boston, educated at High Holborn Academy in London, and graduated from Eton College in 1859, although no evidence survives to corroborate these claims. It does seem likely that he did enjoy a substantial degree of formal education, since Elliott was universally acknowledged to be highly literate and learned.” Also regarding the Harper’s piece, I don’t see a Mr. Harris from Kentucky.

Stephens and Elliott were debating the legislation that would eventually become the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The original original bill was introduced in 1870 by Charles Sumner and “outlawed racial discrimination in juries, schools, transportation, and public accommodations.” The Republican leaders had to weaken the bill’s provisions to get enough support for it. The 1875 law “- which only passed after all references to equal and integrated education were stripped completely — failed to have any lasting effect. The Supreme Court struck down the 1875 Civil Rights Bill in 1883 on the grounds that the Constitution did not extend to private businesses.”

You can read more about the Stephens-Elliott debate at the Library of Congress. On January 6, 1874 Elliott directly responded to Stephens’ speech the day before:

Now sir, recurring to the venerable and distinguished gentleman from Georgia, [Mr. Stephens,] who has added his remonstrance against the passage of this bill, permit me to say that I share in the feeling of high personal regard for that gentleman which pervades this House. His years, his ability, and his long experience in public affairs entitle him to the measure of consideration which has been accorded to him on this floor. But in this discussion, I cannot and I will not forget that the welfare and rights of my whole race in this country are involved. When, therefore, the honorable gentleman from Georgia lends his voice and influence to defeat this measure, I do not shrink from saying that it is not from him that the American House of Representatives should take lessons in matters touching human rights or the joint relations of the State and national governments. While the honorable gentleman contented himself with harmless speculation in this study, or in the columns of a newspaper, we might well smile at the impotence of his efforts to turn back the advancing tide of opinion and progress; but when he comes against upon this national arena, and throws himself with all his power and influence across the path which leads to the full enfranchisement of my race, I meet him only as an adversary; nor shall age or any other consideration restrain me from saying that he now offers this Government, which he has done his utmost to destroy, a very poor return for its magnanimous treatment, to come here and seek to continue, by the assertion of doctrines obnoxious to the true principles of our Government, the burdens and oppressions which rest upon five millions of his countrymen who never failed to lift their earnest prayers for the success of this Government when the gentleman was seeking to break up the Union of these States and to blot the American Republic from the galaxy of nations [Loud applause]. (Congressional Record, House, 43rd Cong., 1st sess. (6 January 1874): 409.)

Sir, it is scarcely twelve years since that gentleman shocked the civilized word by announcing the birth of a government which rested on human slavery as its corner-stone. The progress of events has swept away that pseudo-government which rested on greed, pride, and tyranny; and the race who he then ruthlessly spurned and tramped on are here to meet him in debate, and to demand that the rights which are enjoyed by their former oppressors – who vainly sought to overthrow a Government for which they could not prostitute to the base uses of slavery – shall be accorded to those who even in the darkness of slavery kept their allegiance to freedom and the Union. Sir, the gentleman from Georgia has learned much since 1861; but he is still a laggard. Let him put away the entirely false and fatal theories which have so greatly marred an otherwise enviable record. Let him accept, in its fullness and beneficence, the great doctrine that American citizenship carries with it every civil and political right which manhood can confer. Let him lend his influence, with all masterly ability, to complete the proud structure of legislation which makes this nation worthy of the great declaration which heralded its birth, and he will have done that which will most nearly redeem his reputation in the eyes of the world, and best vindicate the wisdom of that policy which has permitted him to regain his seat upon this floor.
(Congressional Record, House, 43rd Cong., 1st sess. (6 January 1874): 410.)

This Library of Congress article provides links to Elliott’s full speech in the Congressional Record and an article about the 1875 Civil Rights Act. You can read Alexander Stephens’ January 5th speech that starts here in the Congressional Record.

According to Eric Foner, “Seven blacks sat in the Forty-Third Congress, and all spoke with vigor and eloquence, on the Civil Rights Bill. Before galleries crowded with black spectators, their speeches invoked both personal experience and the black political ideology that had matured during Reconstruction. Several related their own ‘outrages and indignities.’ Joseph Rainey had been thrown from a Virginia streetcar, John R. Lynch forced to occupy a railroad smoking car with gamblers and drunkards, Richard H. Cain and Robert B. Elliott excluded from a North Carolina restaurant, …” [Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. New York: HarperPerenial ModernClassics, 2014. Pages 399-400.]

From the Library of Congress: The Shackle Broken, “South Carolina representative Robert B. Elliott’s famous speech in favor of the Civil Rights Act, delivered in the House of Representatives on January 6, 1874, is memorialized here. The Act, which guaranteed equal treatment in all places of public accommodation to all people regardless of their “nativity, race, color, or persuasion, religious or political,” was passed on March 1, 1875. The central image shows Congressman Elliott speaking from the floor of the House of Representatives. Hanging from the ceiling is a banner with a quotation from his speech: “What you give to one class you must give to all. What you deny to one class. You deny to all.” Above are two Civil War scenes of black troops in action. On the left is a full-length statue of Abraham Lincoln, holding a bundle of arrows and his Emancipation Proclamation, standing before the U.S. Capitol. On the right is another statue, of Civil Rights advocate Charles Sumner holding the “Bill of Civil Rights,” in front of Faneuil Hall in Boston. Below Sumner are his words, “Equality of rights is the first of rights.” Beneath the central scene is a view of a small farm with its black owner, family, and laborers. The caption below is “American Slave Labour is of the Past – Free Labour is of the Present–We Toil for our Own Children and Not for Those of Others.” At the far left are two black soldiers, and on the right black sailors. Below them are Lincoln’s words, “Of those who were slaves at the beginning of the rebellion full one hundred thousand are now in the U. S. Service” and “So far as tested, it is difficult to say they are not as good soldiers as any.” The words “Army,” “Navy,” “Jury,” “Ballot,” “Liberty,” and “Equality” are inscribed in the borders. Further extracts from Elliott’s speech appear throughout.”; you can read more about it at the Smithsonian, its National Museum of African American History & Culture.

R.B. Elliott on far right

Harper’s Weekly January 24, 1874

no discrimination, even in cemeteries and public schools

Also from the Library of Congress: the Currier & Ives 1872 image of “The first colored senator and representatives – in the 41st and 42nd Congress of the United States”; Frederick Douglass and other Distinguished Colored Men, c1883 – according to the New York Public Library, Frederick Douglass wrote to a newspaper when Elliott died, “…I, with thousands who knew the ability of young Elliott, was hoping and waiting to see him emerge from his late comparative obscurity, and take his place again in the halls of Congress. But alas! He is gone, and we can only hope that the same power that gave us one Elliott, will give us another in the near future. Frederick Douglass, Washington, D.C. Aug 30.” ; an editorial on page 2 of the January 19, 1874 issue of The Democrat in Weston, West Virginia, which saw the Civil Rights legislation as “The Beginning of the End.”

I got the Harper’s Weekly article and image from HathiTrust on pages 149 and 150. I put the portrait from page 150 in the first paragraph of the article.

The January 1874 clipping also comes from the same link at HathiTrust.

R.B. Elliott on upper left

Posted in 150 Years Ago, 150 Years Ago This Month, Postbellum Politics, Postbellum Society, Reconstruction | Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Alonzo Jacob Ransier, federalism, Forty-Third Congress, John C. Calhoun, Robert Brown Elliott, States' Rights, The Civil Rights Act of 1875 | Comments Off

a good word

Posted on January 22, 2024 by SUMPTER

for a bête noire

There was a report 150 years ago last month that the ex-Vice President of the Confederacy admired the incumbent U.S. President, U.S. Grant. From the December 25, 1873 issue of The Valley Virginian (page 1):

Alexander H, Stephens does not indulge in the average Bourbon estimate of President Grant. Here is what he said, in conversation with a friend, a few days ago, concerning this bete noir of Democracy: “When I first met him in 1866, I made up my mind that Grant was one of the most remarkable men of the age. I said so, and wrote to that effect, before Grant was even thought of for the Presidency, and every year since has strengthened my conviction. He has shown a wonderfully clear conception of his duties nod powers as President. He has executed the laws as he has found them and is as little inclined to usurp power as any President we ever had; in this respect he is a great contrast to Jackson, who had an imperious will. Even in the Louisiana troubles he has illustrated his character. He enforced the decrees of the United States court, and when asked to send another Judge to New Orleans in place of Judge Durell, he replied that he could not interfere with the assignment of judges made by the Supreme court. Not much Caesarism in that.”

Caesar-like

law-abiding

Judge Durell

Before the war Mr. Stephens represented a Georgia district in the U. S. House of Representatives. On December 1, 1873 he returned to the U.S. Capitol as a representative from Georgia. From the December 20, 1873 issue of Harper’s Weekly:

ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.

THAT was a very striking scene in the House of Representatives when ALEXANDER. H. STEPHENS, of Georgia, appeared and took his seat. The ex-Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy entered the hall on crutches. He looked feeble and emaciated, but no more so than for several years past. Few of the members recognized him, and of all those in the hall there were probably not more than five or six who were his contemporaries during any part of the fourteen years when he sat in the House, from 1843 to 1857. By a proper and graceful courtesy, Mr. DAWES, as the senior member of the House, and Mr. STEPHENS, on account of his age and infirmities, were allowed the privilege of the first choice of seats; the others had to abide the chance of the lottery. Mr. STEPHENS selected a prominent seat in front of the Speaker’s desk.

During the swearing in of members Mr. STEPHENS stood leaning on one crutch, supported on the other side by Mr. P. M. B. YOUNG, ex-major general of the Confederate army. “Baring his white head,” says a spectator of the scene, “and lifting his thin, ghostly hand, his eyes seemed to burn with a strange light as they were fastened on the Speaker.” He is the first really conspicuous Southern statesman of the period before the war who has returned to the national legislature. What memories must have crowded upon his mind while he stood there to take the oath! He had striven earnestly to prevent secession and avert war. With impassioned eloquence he had warned the people of the South against the folly into which they were rushing with blind and headlong haste, and pictured in glowing colors the greatness and growth of the nation, which, he said, was “the admiration of the civilized world,” and represented “the brightest hopes of mankind.” Drawn into the secession movement against his better judgment and against his choice, he was distinguished by the bold candor with which he avowed the principles on which the new government was to be founded. He denounced as fundamentally wrong the idea of the equality of the races. “Our new government,” he declared, in his well-known speech at Savannah in March, 1861, “is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas. Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first in the history of the world based upon this great philosophical and moral truth.” This frank avowal had even more effect at the North than at the South, and served to quicken and strengthen the spirit of patriotism which saved the Union. Not the least strange of the circumstances under which Mr. STEPHENS takes his seat in Congress is the presence of several representatives of the very race whose subordination to the whites he so forcibly affirmed.

Mr. STEPHENS was born in Taliaferro County on the 11th of February, 1812, and is consequently nearly sixty-six years old at the present time. A newspaper correspondent writing from Washington says of him: “Mr. STEPHENS is afflicted with rheumatism of the severest type, which has thrown one hip out of place, and though he can hobble about a room with the aid of a cane, he has to use crutches on the street. Physically he is very feeble, but his intellect is as clear as ever. He eats animal food very seldom, and then sparingly. He is fearfully emaciated, and so colorless that his slender fingers seem almost transparent.”

“ghostly hand” with “slim fingers”

assisted Mr. Stephens at swearing in

dressed for Russia

I don’t think his age is right in the Harper’s piece. According to Wikipedia: Alexander H. Stephens was born on February 11, 1812 and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1843 until 1859 and then from 1873 until 1882; Pierce M. B. Young rose to the rank of Major General in the Confederate army, represented a Georgia district in the U.S. House from 1868 until 1875, and then represented the United States in Russia, Guatemala, and Honduras; Edward Henry Durell resigned from his federal judgeship in Louisiana in 1874 after the U.S. House Judiciary committee recommended he be impeached because he was “accused of irregularities in bankruptcy proceedings, corruption and drunkenness.” According to the Library of Congress, The Valley Virginian was published in Staunton, Virginia from 1865 until 1891.

Mr. Stephens didn’t see President Grant as another Caesar, but, according to Emerging Civil War, he had a different opinion of Abraham Lincoln: Lincoln and Caesar were both kindhearted and esteemed for many good qualities, “But in public life the two men were alike in that they could be ‘looked upon as the destroyer[s] of liberties…’” This information is from Stephens’ The War between the States, Volume II.

In a section about plantation owners’ loss of political and economic power in the post-war South, Eric Foner wrote that emancipation and loss of land values meant plantres’ wealth was sharply reduced after the war. Milledge Luke Bonham had trouble making ends meet despite owning two large cotton plantations. “Alexander H. Stephens and Gen. John B. Gordon were reduced to earning money by writing testimonials for Darby’s Prophylactic Fluid, a medicine manufactured in New York. (‘No family should be without it,’ declared the Confederacy’s Vice President.)” [Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. New York: HarperPerenial ModernClassics, 2014. Pages 399-400.] John M. Darby “was an American botanist, chemist, and academic.” The ad is from the June 26, 1869 issue of The Charleston Daily News (at the Library of Congress (image 4).

“most wonderful”

The 1873 Harper’s Weekly content is from Hathi Trust; the section reproduced above is on page 1140.

From Library of Congress: Andrew Jackson portrait; a white-haired A.H. Stephens; Capitol statue

The image of Pierce Manning Butler Young that identifies him as U.S. Minister to Guatemala and Honduras is from The New York Public Library. He was Consul General in St. Petersburg, Russia before his stint in Central America.

From Wikimedia: Henry Ulke’s 1875 painting of Ulysses S. Grant – the official White House portrait; the image of Edward H. Durell; the photo of Pierce Manning Butler Young in the Confederate uniform;

Stephens’ statue at U.S. Capitol

Posted in 150 Years Ago, Aftermath, Reconstruction | Tagged Alexander Hamilton Stephens, Cornerstone Speech, Edward Henry Durell, Grant Administration, Henry Laurens Dawes, John B. Gordon, John M. Darby, Milledge Luke Bonham, Pierce Manning Butler Young, Ulysses S. Grant | Leave a comment

new governor

Posted on January 1, 2024 by SUMPTER

Governor Walker

Governor Kemper

It was a new year with a new governor for Virginia. 150 years ago a Richmond newspaper looked back with appreciation on the exiting governor – even though he was a northerner – and looked forward to the incoming governor – a native son. From the January 1, 1874 issue of the Daily Dispatch (image 4):

THE GOVERNORS.

The Constitution of Virginia fixes to-day for the commencement of the term of service of the Governor-elect, General KEMPER, and should the process of counting the vote for Governor not occasion unexpected delay the change of executive officers will accordingly take place this day.

Harper’s Weekly July 24, 1869 p478

In the retirement of Governor WALKER we are sure he carries with him the good wishes of the people of Virginia. He has made them an excellent Governor under circumstances which doubly increases their grateful sense of his services. He came to the office a stranger from a distant State, but very partially acquainted with us, our wants and dispositions. He was elected at a time when it was questionable, from the state of things, whether we could elect one of our own well-known statesmen. Liberal in his views and opposed to further oppressions of the South, after solicitation became the Conservative candidate for Governor, and was elected by a very large majority. The friends who knew him pledged themselves for him that he would faithfully administer the office of Governor, and his frankness and honorable bearing readily won the public confidence. He has fulfilled all the promises of both himself and friends, and faithfully and courageously held the helm of the ship of State in her passage through perilous waters.

It has been the lot of few men to hold important offices under such circumstances. His reflections upon the conclusion of his term must be of themselves a happy reward for his devotion and fidelity to the people of Virginia. But the added satisfaction of the assured good-will and gratitude of those people unquestionably makes the occasion one more than ordinarily felicitious. As no Governor in this country ever retired from his office under just such peculiar circumstances, we imagine none before have felt such satisfaction as is the reward this day of Governor WALKER. The good wishes of us all are tendered him for happiness and success in life.

The chair thus vacated by the generous native of another State will be occupied at once by JAMES L. KEMPER, who is elevated to the office of Governor by the largest popular majority ever given to a candidate for the position. A son of Virginia, who has been tried as a statesman and a hero, and who has proved his capacity and fidelity in every field and under every trial, he enters upon the duties of the chief executive office of Virginia with the unqualified confidence and affection of the people.

Governor KEMPER will discharge his duties with good judgment and integrity. He will bear himself with dignity and exercise his authority with impartiality and justice. Above all, he will exert his official sway with that calm consistency and resolution that will tend to allay causes of irritation, and as far as possible facilitate the subsidence of the unamiable sentiments and feelings which have for so many years so sadly vexed our country.

The State welcomes Governor KEMPER to his post, and bids him good speed in his administration.

A northern paper published a brief biography of the new governor. From the January 17, 1874 issue of Harper’s Weekly:

Governor Kemper

GENERAL JAMES L. KEMPER.

GENERAL KEMPER, who took the oath of office as Governor of Virginia on the 1st inst., is a native of Madison County, which is in that section of the State known as Piedmont Virginia. He is in his fiftieth year, having been born in the month of January, 1824. He received his education at Washington College and the Virginia Military Institute (both located at Lexington), taking the degree of M.A. at the former institution, now known as the Washington-Lee University.

After he attained his majority he entered the law office of Judge GEORGE W. SUMMERS, in Charleston, Kanawha County, and while worrying over COKE and BLACKSTONE, was commissioned a Captain in the volunteer army by President JAMES K. POLK in 1847, and joined General Taylor’s army just after the victory and capture of Buena Vista, too late to see active service.

Upon his return to Virginia, and while engaged in the practice of his profession, Captain KEMPER was elected to the Legislature as a Delegate from his native county, and was elected successively from 1852 to 1862. For a number of years he served as chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs; he was also president of the Board of Visitors of the Virginia Military Institute, and Speaker of the House of Delegates in 1861, which position he resigned to enter the Confederate army, as Colonel of the Seventh Virginia Infantry, May 2, 1861. He participated in many engagements, and was early promoted to the command of a brigade. He was severely wounded at the battle of Gettysburg, where he was taken prisoner, and held as such for three months, when he was finally exchanged.

After his exchange and return to Virginia he was for a long time unfit for any duty, but was assigned to command the local defense troops in and around Richmond, and commissioned a Major-General June, 1864, which position, he held until the evacuation of Richmond, April 3, 1865. Since the close of the war General KEMPER has been engaged in the practice of his profession in his native county, Madison. In the last Presidential contest he was a GREELEY and BROWN elector for the State at large.

Kemper’s right exposed to Vermonters

You can read a full account of Kemper’s brigade during the July 3rd attack at National Park Service History. (This is not a National Park Service site).

According to The Horse Soldier, Kemper’s:

“brigade was one of the main assault units in Pickett’s Charge, advancing on the right flank of Pickett’s line. After crossing the Emmitsburg Road, the brigade was hit by flanking fire from two Vermont regiments, driving it to the left and disrupting the cohesion of the assault. In spite of the danger, Kemper rose up in his stirrups to urge his men forwards, shouting “There are the guns, boys, go for them!” He was wounded by a bullet in the abdomen and thigh before being captured by Union troops. However, he was rescued shortly thereafter by Sgt. Leigh Blanton of the First Virginia Infantry Regiment and carried back to the Confederate lines.

“During the Confederate Army’s retreat from Gettysburg, Kemper was again captured by Union forces. He was exchanged (for Charles K. Graham) on September 19, 1863. For the rest of the war he was too ill to serve in combat, and commanded the Reserve Forces of Virginia. He was promoted to major general on September 19, 1864.”

The Historical Marker Database shows the Kemper’s Brigade marker at Gettyburg.

The South’s Defender mentions General Kemper a few times, including the Daily Dispatch’s publication of General Beauregard’s report on First Bull Run – Beauregard was grateful that Colonel Kemper did an excellent taking over quartermaster duties. Also, there is another Daily Dispatch report about Gettysburg’s aftermath:

P. S.–The numerous friends of Gen. Kemper will be gratified to learn that his family, who reside in this place [Madison Court House], are in receipt of very recent information from the North stating that he had passed the crisis of his case, and is in a fair way of recovery. His lower extremities were paralyzed from the effect of his wound — received in the groin — but no doubt is entertained by the surgeon that he will recover the use of his limbs.

new executive in the mansion

Gilbert Carlton Walker was born in Binghamton, New York and spent most of his early years in the state until he moved to Chicago in 1859. In 1864 he moved to Norfolk, Virginia. Norfolk surrendered to Union forces in 1862 and remained under martial law for the duration of the Civil War. You can read about the fall of Norfolk at The Civil War Months. According to Eric Foner in Reconstruction, in 1869 Southern Democrats tried to appeal to the political center by working with some disaffected Republicans. They did not oppose black suffrage but supported voting rights for former Confederates. In Virginia William Mahone was the main financier of a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans who supported the new constitution, except for the section disenfranchising the ex-Confederates, and supported Mahone’s plans for consolidating Virginia’s railroads to better compete against the Baltimore & Ohio. The group ran Gilbert C. Walker, a Republican with no “association with secession,” in the 1869 gubernatorial election. Walker defeated Henry Horatio Wells, a Radical Republican. The Grant administration didn’t help the Wells campaign very much because they saw a Walker governorship as a chance to make Virginia political parties non-racial. Walker’s supporters also won control of the legislature in the 1869 election. Mr. Foner writes that Virginia was “the only Confederate state to avoid a period of Radical Reconstruction.” [Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. New York: HarperPerenial ModernClassics, 2014. Print. Pages 412-413.]

According to the Wikipedia link above, William Mahone’s brigade was in A.P. Hill’s corps from May 1863: “At the Battle of Gettysburg, Mahone’s brigade was mostly unengaged and suffered only a handful of casualties the entire battle. Mahone was supposed to participate in the attack on Cemetery Ridge on July 2, but against orders, held his brigade back. During Pickett’s Charge the following day, Mahone’s brigade was assigned to protect artillery batteries and was uninvolved in the main fighting. Mahone’s official report for the battle was only 100 words long and gave little insight into his actions on July 2. However, he told fellow brigadier Carnot Posey that division commander Richard H. Anderson had ordered him to stay put.”

From the Library of Congress: Richmond’s Governor’s Mansion in 1865 – it’s better known as the Executive Mansion and “it is the oldest occupied governor’s mansion in the United States. It has served as the home of Virginia governors and their families since 1813.”; Currier & Ives c1876 greeting

The Internet Archive has the July 24, 1869 issue of Harper’s Weekly, which contains the image of Gilbert Walker and the article about his election.

The material from the January 17, 1874 issue of Harper’s Weekly comes from HathiTrust.

From Wikimedia Commons: Governor Walker via Harper’s Weekly; General Kemper; Hal Jespersen’s map, which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. I didn’t make any changes;

Happy new year (New York : Published by Currier & Ives, c1876.; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2002695831/)

wishing you a very good 2024

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, Postbellum Politics, Reconstruction, Southern Society | Tagged Battle of Gettysburg, George Edward Pickett, Gilbert Carlton Walker, Henry Horatio Wells, James Lawson Kemper, Virginia, William Mahone | Leave a comment

In a manger

Posted on December 25, 2023 by SUMPTER

Institution of the Crib at Greccio

Saint Francis of Assisi is given credit for creating the first live Nativity scene in Greccio, Italy 800 years ago this Christmas. St. Francis used live people and animals, I think, for the Bethlehem manger scene. This is how St. Bonaventure summarizes the event in his biography of Francis (Chapter X, paragraph 7):

7. Now three years before his death it befell that he was minded, at the town of Greccio, to celebrate the memory of the Birth of the Child Jesus, with all the added solemnity that he might, for the kindling of devotion. That this might not seem an innovation, he sought and obtained license from the Supreme Pontiff, and then made ready a manger, and bade hay, together with an ox and an ass, be brought unto the spot. The Brethren were called together, the folk assembled, the wood echoed with their voices, and that august night was made radiant and solemn with many bright lights, and with tuneful and sonorous praises. The man of God, filled with tender love, stood before the manger, bathed m tears, and overflowing with joy. Solemn Masses were celebrated over the manger, Francis, the Levite of Christ, chanting the Holy Gospel. Then he preached unto the folk standing round of the Birth of the King in poverty, calling Him, when he wished to name Him, the Child of Bethlehem, by reason of his tender love for Him. A certain knight, valorous and true, Messer John of Greccio, who for the love of Christ had left the secular army, and was bound by closest friendship unto the man of God, declared that he beheld a little Child right fair to see sleeping in that manger. Who seemed to be awakened from sleep when the blessed Father Francis embraced Him in both arms. This vision of the devout knight is rendered worthy of belief, not alone through the holiness of him that beheld it, but is also confirmed by the truth that it set forth, and withal proven by the miracles that followed it. For the ensample of Francis, if meditated upon by the world, must needs stir up sluggish hearts unto the faith of Christ, and the hay that was kept back from the manger by the folk proved a marvellous remedy for sick beasts, and a prophylactic against divers other plagues, God magnifying by all means His servant, and making manifest by clear and miraculous portents the efficacy of his holy prayers.

The Chapel of the First Live Nativity in Greccio

Francis of Assisi lived from 1181-1226. I read someplace that Saint Bonaventure’s (1221-1274) based his biography of Francis on an earlier work by Thomas of Celano (c1185-1260). You can read Thomas of Celano’s biography at Franciscan Seculars. Part I, chapter 30 describes the 1223 nativity scene.

This year’s nativity scene at the Vatican honors St. Francis’s 1223 creation in Greccio.

From Wikimedia Commons: Fiat 500e’s photograph of the Chapel of the First Live Nativity -“licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.” I didn’t make any changes; the fresco of St. Francis setting up the nativity scene at Greccio, part of the Saint Francis cycle in the Upper Church of San Francesco at Assisi – the cycle has traditionally been attributed to Giotto di Bondone, but the actual painter has been disputed by art historians since 1912; G.dallorto’s photo of the simple nativity scene from a 4th century sarcophagus

From the Library of Congress: Currier & Ives’ 1876 lithograph;

Infant Jesus with ox and ass from 4th century sarcophagus

Merry Christmas (New York : Published by Currier & Ives, 125 Nassau St., [1876])

to you and yours

Posted in 800 Years Ago, American Culture, World Culture | Tagged 800 Years Ago, Christmas, Greccio Italy, St. Bonaventure, St. Francis of Assisi, Thomas of Celano | Leave a comment

bicentennial

Posted on December 23, 2023 by SUMPTER

visit from st nick (A reprint of the first [sic] publication of "A visit from St. Nicholas." [n. p., ca. 1919].; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/rbpe.11804300/?q=a+visit+from+st.+nicholas)

Illustration accompanying c1830 broadside of “A Visit from St. Nicholas”

“A Visit from from St. Nicholas” was first published anonymously in the Troy Sentinel on Dec. 23, 1823. The poem was later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore and has become more widely known as “The Night Before Christmas.” According to Rebecca Sicree, writing in the November/December 2023 issue of Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity, “It is impossible to overestimate how much Moore’s poem has influenced the celebration of Christmas in the United States. Before Moore, the newly independent country had no common American Christmas traditions. After the advent of Moore’s poem, pictures of Santa Claus showed him short and fat, like one of the Seven Dwarfs, though he eventually regained his adult height.” Rebecca Sicree points out that Clement Moore’s poem encouraged the transition from saint to modern Santa Claus because of these lines:

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself. . . .

Fifty years after the poem, Harper’s Weekly clearly identified a plump, shortish night visitor as Santa Claus:

“He knows when you’re awake”

Based on the poem accompanying Thomas Nast’s illustration, it seems that Santa really likes his privacy and history … but if you’re 1500 years old, the arctic explorers might be more like current events:

Ho! Ho! – reindeer too fast

In her article Rebecca Sicree explains that everyone assumed Santa was pretty much a lone elf until a poem in the December 26, 1857 issue of Harper’s Weekly. “The Wonders of Santa Claus” includes this stanza:

In his house upon the top of a hill,
And almost out of sight,
He keeps a great many elves at work,
All working with all their might,
To make a million of pretty things,
Cakes, sugar-plums, and toys,
To fill the stockings, hung up you know
By the little girls and boys.

The same poem revealed Santa Claus’ true identity:

But it were an endless task to tell,
The length that the list extends,
Of the curious gifts the queer old man
Prepares for his Christmas friends.
Belike you are guessing who he is,
And the country whence he came.
Why, he was born in Germany,
And St. Nicholas is his name.

big employer of elves

According to Wikipedia, Clement Moore’s famous poem had a precursor:

“Old Santeclaus with Much Delight” is an anonymous illustrated children’s poem published in New York in 1821, predating by two years the first publication of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (Twas the Night before Christmas). It is the first publication to mention (and illustrate) Santa Claus’s reindeer and his sleigh, as well as being the first to describe his arrival on Christmas Eve. The accompanying illustrations are the earliest published artistic depictions of a Santa Claus figure.

“steady friend of virtuous youth”

“O’r chimney tops, and tracts of snow”

“various beds and stockings seen”

____________

Old Santeclaus did leave the stockings and presents in the children’s bedroom. Bad children didn’t receive a lump of coal – they received a stocking with “a long, black, birchen rod” for parental application.

Harper’s Weekly and its cartoonist Thomas Nast had a lot to do with Santa’s development, even during the American Civil War. Read about it at American Battlefield Trust.

SANTA CLAUS IN CAMP (by Thomas Nast, Harper's Weekly, January 3, 1863)

patriotic (Union) Santa

Christmas Eve, 1862 by Thomas nast (Harper's Weekly, January 3, 1862)

“Up on the house top, Click, click, click”

So Santa Claus has evolved over the centuries.

saint

elf

modern

Rebecca Sicree’s article, “The Evolution of Elves,” is published on pages 19-21 in the print magazine. You can also read her article online.

You can find the January 3, 1874 issue of Harper’s Weekly at Internet Archive. I believe the poem refers to arctic explorers Sir Sir John Franklin and Charles Francis Hall.

The December 26, 1857 issue of Harpers Weekly is at Internet Archive, the Santa poem is on pages 820-21 ;

From the Library of Congress: the c.1830 illustration for Clement Moore’s poem – “Photostat copy of a reproduction of the broadside illustrated by Myron King and published at Troy, N. Y., about 1830. The poem was first published in the Troy Sentinal on Dec. 23, 1823.”;

Both Civil War illustrations were published in the January 3, 1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly – I probably got them from Son of the South. The second image shows Santa and reindeer on the roof. In 1864 Benjamin Hanby wrote “Up on the House Top”, which is considered the second-oldest secular Christmas song. You can see sheet music at Otterbein University – the lyrics have apparently been very malleable over the years.

You can find the image of the elfish St. Nick working at the fireplace in Twas the Night before Christmas at Project Gutenberg.

From Wikimedia Commons: the three images from “Old Santeclaus with Much Delight” – in green, chimney, and stockings; Saint Nicholas of Myra icon from Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, created first half of the 13th century; Santa and reindeer at Hershey Park December 23, 2021 – Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf’s photo “is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license” -I didn’t make any changes – here’s the description: “Santa and his reindeer. Governor Tom Wolf was joined by Secretary of Agriculture Russell Redding and Pennsylvania State Veterinarian Dr. Kevin Brightbill to meet Santa and his nine reindeer at Hersheypark Christmas Candylane to announce that the reindeer have received a clean bill of health and are cleared for take-off on December 24. Hershey, PA – December 23, 2021″” Gerardus Mercator’s map of the North Pole and surroundings – the map was published posthumously in a 1595 atlas.

He’s on the top of the world

Posted in 150 Years Ago, American Culture, American History, American Society | Tagged Benjamin Russell Hanby, Charles Francis Hall, Clement Clarke Moore, Harper's Weekly, John Franklin, Santa Claus, St. Nicholas, Thomas Nast | Leave a comment

tea time

Posted on December 16, 2023 by SUMPTER

1789 British engraving

150 years ago this week people commemorated the centennial of the Boston Tea Party. According to the January 3, 1874 issue of Harper’s Weekly, one of the celebrations incorporated a contemporary political issue – women’s rights:

THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY.

New England Woman’s Tea Party held here

On the 15th of December a distinguished party of ladies and gentlemen assembled in Faneuil Hall to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the famous Boston “Tea-Party,” when the cargoes of the Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver, three British ships, consisting of 342 chests of tea, were thrown into the harbor by a body of sixty men disguised as Indians. The memorial party had also a semi-political aspect. It was originated and managed by Mrs. LUCY STONE in the interest of woman suffrage. Invitations were sent to many prominent agitators of woman’s rights, and, to the gratifications of the ladies who had the affair in charge, most of them were accepted. The celebration was a complete success, except in one respect – the supply of tea gave out before all the guests had been served. Colonel T. W. HIGGINSON presided, and to his judgment and general fitness for the position much of the success of the Centennial Tea-Party is to be attributed. Enthusiasm was not as prominent a feature of the celebration as its nature would lead one to suppose; the speeches were marked more by cool and solid argument than by stirring appeals to the feelings of the audience, and Lucy Stone’s address alone created any degree of enthusiasm. Every thing was carried out just as it was advertised, and the managers may well be proud of the success which attended their efforts.

The original tea-party was a practical protest against the tea monopoly granted by the British government to the East India Company. A number of American merchants at that time in London were eager to secure the privilege of furnishing ships to carry the obnoxious cargoes to the colonies. But the sturdy colonists were determined to resist this encroachment on their rights. Great meetings were held in Boston and other cities to protest against the monopoly. The British government paid no heed to the popular demand, and regarded the agitation as a factious movement which would either die of itself or be easily crushed out by force.

Old South meeting House 1835

Toward the end of November, 1773, the Dartmouth arrived at Boston, and came to anchor near the Castle. A meeting of the people of Boston and the neighboring towns was convened at Faneuil Hall, which being too small, the assembly adjourned to the Old South Meetinghouse. A resolution was adopted declaring that “the tea shall not be landed, that no duty shall be paid, and that it shall be sent back in the same bottom.” The people also voted “that Mr. Roch, the owner of the vessel, be directed not to enter the tea, at his peril, and that Captain HALL be informed, and at his peril, not to suffer any of the tea to be landed.” The ship was ordered to be moored at Griffin’s Wharf, and a guard of twenty-five men was appointed to watch her. The meeting received a letter from the consignees, offering to store the tea until instructions could be received from England, but the proposal was rejected. The sireriff [sic] then read a proclamation ordering the people to disperse. It was greeted with hisses.

By the 14th of December two other ships loaded with tea had arrived, and were moored at Griffin’s Wharf, under charge of the volunteer guard, and public order was well observed. Another meeting was held on the 14th in the Old South, when it was resolved to order Mr. Roch to apply immediately for a clearance for his ship, and send her to sea. The Governor meanwhile had taken measures to prevent her sailing out of the harbor. Two armed ships were stationed at the entrance, and the commandant of the Castle received orders not to allow any vessel to pass outward without a permit from the Governor.

This roused the popular feeling to a white heat. On the 16th several thousand people met in the Old South and vicinity. SAMUEL PHILLIPS SAVAGE presided. The youthful JOSIAH QUINCY made a stirring speech, at the close of which (about three o’clock in the afternoon) the question was put, “Will you abide by your former resolutions with respect to not suffering the tea to be landed?” The vast assembly, as with one voice, gave an affirmative reply. Mr. ROCH in the mean while had been sent to the Governor, who was at his country-house at Milton, a few miles from Boston, to request a permit for his vessel to leave the harbor. A demand was also made upon the Collector for a clearance, but he refused until the tea should be landed. ROCH returned late in the afternoon with information that the Governor refused to grant a permit until a clearance should be exhibited. The meeting was greatly excited; and, as twilight was approaching, a call was made for candles. At that moment a person disguised like a Mohawk Indian raised the war-whoop in the gallery of the Old South, which was answered from without. Another voice in the gallery shouted, “Boston Harbor a tea-pot to-night! Hurra for Griffin’s Wharf!” A motion was instantly made to adjourn, and the people, in great confusion, crowded into the streets. Several persons in disguise were seen crossing Fort Hill in the direction of Griffin’s Wharf, and thitherward the populace pressed.

at Griffin’s Wharf

Concert of action marked the operations at the wharf; a general system of proceedings had doubtless been previously arranged. The number of persons disguised as Indians was fifteen or twenty, but about sixty went on board the vessels containing the tea. Before the work was over it was estimated that one hundred and forty were engaged. A man named LENDALL PITTS seems to have been recognized by the party as a sort of commander-in-chief, and under his directions the Dartmouth was first boarded, the hatches were taken up, and her cargo, consisting of one hundred and fourteen chests of tea, was brought on deck, where the boxes were broken open and their contents cast into the water. The other two vessels (the Eleanor, Captain JAMES BRUCE, and the Beaver, Captain HEZEKIAH COFFIN) were next boarded, and all the tea they contained was thrown into the harbor. The whole quantity thus destroyed within the space of two hours was three hundred and forty-two chests.

It was an early hour on a clear, moonlight evening when this transaction took place, and the British squadron was not more than a quarter of a mile distant. British troops, too, were near, yet the whole proceeding was uninterrupted. This apparent apathy on the part of government officers can be accounted for only by the fact, alluded to by the papers of the time, that something far more serious was expected on the occasion of an attempt to land the tea, and that the owners of the vessels, as well as the public authorities, felt themselves placed under lasting obligations to the rioters for extricating them from a serious dilemma. They certainly would have been worsted in an attempt forcibly to land the tea. In the actual result the vessels and other property were spared from injury; the people of Boston, having carried their resolution into effect, were satisfied; the courage of the civil and military officers was unimpeached, and the “national honor” was not compromised. None but the East India Company, whose property was destroyed, had reason for complaint. A large proportion of those who were engaged in the destruction of the tea were disguised, either by a sort of Indian costume or by blacking their faces. Many, however, were fearless of consequences, and boldly employed their hands without concealing their faces from the bright light of the moon. As soon as the work of destruction was completed the active party marched in perfect order into the town, preceded by drum and fife, dispersed to their homes, and Boston, untarnished by actual mob or riot, was never more tranquil than on that bright and frosty December night.

According to the National Park Service, Faneuil Hall re-enacts the 1873 Woman’s Tea Party meeting during the summer season. Read more about the 1873 meeting here. The Harper’s story above reported that Thomas Wentworth Higginson presided at the 1873 meeting. He was a Unitarian minister, radical abolitionist, and commander of “1st South Carolina Volunteers, a regiment comprised entirely of Black soldiers freed from slavery.” He wrote Army Life in a Black Regiment to “record some of the adventures of the First South Carolina Volunteers, the first slave regiment mustered into the service of the United States during the late civil war.” You can read the book at Project Gutenberg.

Harper’s Weekly January 3, 1874

created enthusiasm in Faneuil Hall

presided at Woman’s Tea Party

_____________________________________________

The 1773 tea protests were apparently only partly about taxes. After the the Seven Years’ War, the British government imposed several taxes to get the American colonists to help pay for the war. The Americans resisted. In 1767 Parliament put duties on several products, including tea. The Americans began boycotts and smuggled in tea from Holland. Parliament eventually repealed the duties, except for the one on tea. The East India Company had a monopoly on British trade with India, but by 1773 the company was in bad financial shape. The company and the British government worked out a plan to help the company. Parliament passed a law rescinding all tea duties for the East India Company except for the 1767 three pence tax. The company could sell cheap tea in America and compete with the smugglers. The colonists weren’t buying it. According to Francis S. Drake’s Tea Leaves (page xi-xiv):

The application of the East India Company to the British government for relief from pecuniary embarrassment, occasioned by the great falling off in its American tea trade, afforded the ministry just the opportunity it desired to fasten taxation upon the American colonies. The company asked permission to export tea to British America, free of duty, offering to allow government to retain sixpence per pound, as an exportation tariff, if they would take off the three per cent. duty, in America. This gave an opportunity for conciliating the colonies in an honorable way, and also to procure double the amount of revenue. But no! under the existing coercive policy, this request was of course inadmissible. At this time the company had in its warehouses upwards of seventeen millions of pounds, in addition to which the importations of the current year were expected to be larger than usual. To such a strait was it reduced, that it could neither pay its dividends nor its debts.

By an act of parliament, passed on May 10, 1773, “with little debate and no opposition,” the company, on exportation of its teas to America, was allowed a drawback of the full amount of English duties, binding itself only to pay the threepence duty[the 1767 tax], on its being landed in the English colonies.

tea consignees beware

In accordance with this act, the lords-commissioners of the treasury gave the company a license (August 20, 1773,) for the exportation of six hundred thousand pounds, which were to be sent to Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Charleston, S.C., the principal American ports. As soon as this became known, applications were made to the directors by a number of merchants in the colonial trade, soliciting a share of what promised to be a very profitable business. The establishment of a branch East India house, in a central part of America, whence the tea could be distributed to other points, was suggested. The plan finally adopted was to bestow the agency on merchants, in good repute, in the colonies, who were friendly to the administration, and who could give satisfactory security, or obtain the guaranty of London houses.

The company and its agents viewed this matter solely in a commercial light. No one supposed that the Americans would oppose the measure on the ground of abstract principle. The only doubt was as to whether the company could, merely with the threepenny duty, compete successfully with the smugglers, who brought tea from Holland. It was hoped they might, and that the difference would not compensate for the risk in smuggling. But the Americans at once saw through the scheme, and that its success would be fatal to their liberties.

The new tea act, by again raising the question of general taxation, diverted attention from local issues, and concentrated it upon one which had been already fully discussed, and on which the popular verdict had been definitely made up. Right and justice were clearly on their side. It was not that they were poor and unable to pay, but because they would not submit to wrong. The amount of the tax was paltry, and had never been in question. Their case was not—as in most revolutions—that of a people who rose against real and palpable oppression. It was an abstract principle alone for which they contended. They were prosperous and happy. It was upon a community, at the very height of its prosperity, that this insidious scheme suddenly fell, and it immediately aroused a more general opposition than had been created by the stamp act. “The measure,” says the judicious English historian, Massey, “was beneficial to the colonies; but when was a people engaged in a generous struggle for freedom, deviated by an insidious attempt to practice on their selfish interests?”

“The ministry believe,” wrote Franklin, “that threepence on a pound of tea, of which one does not perhaps drink ten pounds a year, is sufficient to overcome all the patriotism of an American.” The measure gave universal offence, not only as the enforcement of taxation, but as an odious monopoly of trade. To the warning of Americans that their adventure would end in loss, and to the scruples of the company, Lord North answered peremptorily, “It is to no purpose making objections, the king will have it so. The king means to try the question with America.” How absurd was this assertion of prerogative, and how weak the government, was seen when on the first forcible resistance to his plans, the king was compelled to apply to the petty German states for soldiers. Lord North believed that no difficulty could arise, as America, under the new regulation, would be able to buy tea from the company at a lower price than from any other European nation, and that buyers would always go to the cheapest market. …

The Library of Congress has a copy of the December 16, 1773 issue of The Massachusetts Spy available. Page two includes a letter from the Marblehead Committee of Correspondence to the Boston Committee of Correspondence. At a meeting on December 7th the town passed a series of resolves that supported Boston in its attempt to prevent the tea cargo from being unloaded (on land). The second paragraph has a different way of wording the idea that “taxation without representation is tyranny”

WEDNESDAY December 15.
BOSTON.

The following is a copy of the RESOLVES of the town of MARBLEHEAD, included in a very respectful letter from the Committee of Correspondence for that town, to the Committee for the town of Boston.

At a meeting of the freeholders and other inhabitants of Marblehead, qualified to vole in town affairs according to law duly warned and legally convened, the 7th day of December, 1773, pursuant to adjournment

Deacon Stephen Phillips being Moderator.
The following resolves were unan[a]mously passed.

RESOLVED as the opinion of this town
1. That Americans have a right to be as free as any inhabitants of the earth; and to enjoy at all times, an uninterrupted possession of their property.
2. That a tax on Americans without their consent is a measure destructive of their freedom; reflecting [?] the highest dishonour on their resolutions to support it; tending to empoverish all who submit to it; and enabling to dragoon and enslave all who receive it.
3. That the late measures of of the East-India company, in sending their tea to the colonies, their tea being loaded with a duty for raising a revenue in America, are to all intents and purposes so many attempts in them and all employed by them to tax Americans; and said company as well as their factors for these daring attacks upon the liberties of America, so long and resolutely supported by the colonies, are entitled to the highest contempt, and severest marks of resentment from every American.
4. Therefore RESOLVED, That the proceedings of the brave citizens of Boston, and inhabitants of other towns in the province, for opposing the landing this tea, are rational, generous and just: That they are highly honoured and respected by this town for their noble firmness in support of American liberty; and that we are ready with our lives and interests to assist them in opposing these and all other measures tending to enslave our country.
5. That tea from Great-Britain, subject to a duty, whether shipped by the East-India Company or imported by persons here, shall not be landed in this town, while we have the means of opposing it, and that on every attempt of this kind immediate notice shall be given to our brethren in the province.
6. And whereas the tea consignees at Boston, who persist in refusing to reship the tea lately consigned them by the East-India company, have openly trifled with the forbearance of that respectable community, am thereby discovered themselves void of decency, virtue or honour.

Therefore Resolved, That it is the desire of this town to be free from the company of such unworthy miscreants; and its determination to treat them wherever to be found with the contempt which they merit; as well as to carry into execution this resolution against all such as may be any ways concerned in landing tea from Great-Britain thus rendered baneful by it duty.

Voted, That the committee of correspondence of this town be desired to obtain from the Town Clerk’s office, an attested copy of this day’s resolves, and forward the same to the Committee of Correspondence at Boston.

A true copy. Attested,
BENJAMIN BODEN, Town-Clerk

The people from Marblehead said they were ready with their lives and interests to support the cause of American liberty. Josiah Quincy’s speech at the December 16, 1773 meeting in Old South Meetinghouse warned the crowd that they’d have to pay a high price if they continued to defy the British. From Tea Leaves:

Are you ready?

At the afternoon meeting, information was given that several towns had agreed not to use tea. A vote was taken to the effect that its use was improper and pernicious, and that it would be well for all the towns to appoint committees of inspection “to prevent this accursed tea” from coming among them. “Shall we abide by our former resolution with respect to the not suffering the tea to be landed?” was now the question. Samuel Adams, Dr. Thomas Young and Josiah Quincy, Jr., an ardent young patriot devotedly attached to the liberties of his country, were the principal speakers. Only a fragment of the speech of Quincy remains. Counselling moderation, and in a spirit of prophecy, he said:

“It is not, Mr. Moderator, the spirit that vapors within these walls that must stand us in stead. The exertions of this day will call forth the events which will make a very different spirit necessary for our salvation. Whoever supposes that shouts and hosannas will terminate the trials of the day, entertains a childish fancy. We must be grossly ignorant of the importance and value of the prize for which we contend; we must be equally ignorant of the power of those who have combined against us; we must be blind to that malice, inveteracy and insatiable revenge which actuates our enemies, public and private, abroad and in our bosom, to hope that we shall end this controversy without the sharpest, the sharpest conflicts; to flatter ourselves that popular resolves, popular harangues, popular acclamations, and popular vapor will vanquish our foes. Let us consider the issue. Let us look to the end. Let us weigh and consider before we advance to those measures which must bring on the most trying and terrific struggle this country ever saw.”

But the time for weighing and considering the business in hand had passed. Time pressed and decisive action alone remained. “Now that the hand is at the plough,” it was said, “there must be no looking back.”

After the Americans destroyed the tea, the British parliament passed the Intolerable Acts in 1774. The Revolutionary War lasted from 1775 until 1783. It was very difficult, but fortunately for the cause of the fledgling United States, not all Americans were summer soldiers and the sunshine patriots.

“malice, inveteracy and insatiable revenge”

According to The Spirit of ‘Seventy-Six (edited by Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris, Castle Books 2002), the American colonists resented the 1773 tea act more for the danger of the East India Company monopoly than for the actual 3 pence tax (page 1). The book publishes part of Josiah Quincy II’s speech at the December 16, 1773 meeting. It’s exactly the same as Tea Leaves‘ copy. The Spirit of ‘Seventy-Six says that “we give here a brief extract of that speech as recalled later by the Reverend William Gordon, self-appointed historian of the Revolution.” I don’t know how accurate Reverend Gordon’s recollection was. According to Founder’s Online. his four-volume history of the Revolution was published in 1786 and criticized in the United States: “The History was criticized in the United States on the grounds of ‘errors and omissions . . . which if designedly made, ought to discredit him as an historian; or if necessarily omitted for the want of information, will serve to show his dilatory disposition in obtaining a proper statement of facts’ (Daily Advertiser [New York], 9 July 1789).”

I found the January 3, 1874 Harper’s Weekly content at HathiTrust. I’m pretty sure Mr. Roch is really Mr. Rotch.

From the Library of Congress: The engraving from W.D. Cooper’s 1789 The History of North America; Faneuil Hall in 1870 – the inset is what the Hall looked like in 1789, it was too small for the needs of Boston and was rebuilt in 1805-1806; Photomechanical print of Lucy Stone; Thomas Wentworth Higginson; the December 16, 1773 issue of The Massachusetts Spy – the resolves from Marblehead are on page 3; the able-doctor cartoon, which “shows Lord North, with the “Boston Port Bill” extending from a pocket, forcing tea (the Intolerable Acts) down the throat of a partially draped Native female figure representing “America” whose arms are restrained by Lord Mansfield, while Lord Sandwich, a notorious womanizer, restrains her feet and peeks up her skirt. Britannia, standing behind “America”, turns away and shields her face with her left hand.”

The black and white image of the tea destruction was published in the December 1851 issue of Harper’s Monthly. I got it at Free-Images.com.

From Wikimedia: Old South Meeting House in 1835; posted warning – licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license – according to Revolutionary War, “The broadside below was posted all over Boston on November 29, 1773, shortly after the arrival of three ships carrying tea owned by the East India Company.”; Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of Josiah Quincy II, “The Patriot”. The painting was done posthumously, about 1825. The thirty-one year old Josiah Quincy II died from tuberculosis on April 26, 1775 in a ship off the Massachusetts shore on his way back from England. He had been arguing the American cause with sympathetic British politicians.

You can read Francis S. Drake’s 1884 Tea Leaves at Project Gutenberg.

Harper’s Weekly January 3, 1874

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, American History, Postbellum Society | Tagged 1st South Carolina Volunteers, American revolution, Boston Tea Party, Committees of Correspondence, Faneuil Hall, Josiah Quincy II, Lendall Pitts, Lucy Stone, New England Woman's Tea Party, Old South Meeting House, Thomas Wentworth Higginson | Leave a comment

gradual recovery

Posted on November 30, 2023 by SUMPTER

President Ulysses S. Grant’s fifth presidential Thanksgiving proclamation per Pilgrim Hall Museum:

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA – A PROCLAMATION

“dreadful civil strife”

The approaching close of another year brings with it the occasion for renewed thanksgiving and acknowledgment to the Almighty Ruler of the Universe for the unnumbered mercies which He has bestowed upon us.
Abundant harvests have been among the rewards of industry. With local exceptions, health has been among the many blessings enjoyed. Tranquillity at home and peace with other nations have prevailed.
Frugal industry is regaining its merited recognition and its merited rewards.
Gradually but, under the providence of God, surely, as we trust, the nation is recovering from the lingering results of a dreadful civil strife.
For these and all the other mercies vouchsafed it becomes us as a people to return heartfelt and grateful acknowledgments, and with our thanksgiving for blessings we may unite prayers for the cessation of local and temporary sufferings.
I therefore recommend that on Thursday, the 27th day of November next, the people meet in their respective places of worship to make their acknowledgments to Almighty God for His bounties and His protection, and to offer to Him prayers for their continuance.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this 14th day of October, A.D. 1873, and of the Independence of the United States of America the ninety-eighth.
U.S. GRANT

One of the things Chicagoans were thankful for was the good weather. From The Chicago Daily Tribune, November 28, 1873 page 2:

CHICAGO.

phenomenal day

Yesterday was a very unusual “Thanksgiving Day.” It was an unusual day in any sense of the word. The ground was robed in festive apparel, and the sky had donned its holiday attire of blue and white. It was, meteorologically considered, an unusual day. Careful housekeepers were sitting at their open windows, watching the sleighs passing fleetly by. The air was still and balmy, and the snow sufficiently well packed and solid to withstand the ardent invitations of the sun to yield. Nothing could have been more satisfactory to the next generation. Skating on the sidewalk was excellent; skating in the middle of the street unusually good. The ‘buses were running with open windows, while the boys were amusing themselves by attaching their sleds to the steps of the same. Such an unusual state of affairs was worthy of note, as being quite phenomenal. It was in delightful contrast with the last national holiday, especially so to the same coming generation, who will ever recollect with feelings of the utmost indignation the atmospheric humidity which caused their firecrackers to expire with an ignoble fizz, and their rockets and Roman candles to feebly glimmer in protest, and then obstinately reject any further invitations to shine with their expected brilliancy. In short, there was just enough snow to please the boys and girls, — just enough to render sleighing possible, and not enough to interfere with street-travel or mar the enjoyment of the day to those who took the opportunity of visiting their relatives residing in distant portions of the city. Nothing could have been more enjoyable than the weather. The impecunious houskeeper [sic], with just one scuttle of coal in his cellar, and no prospect of securing another, chose the occasion to give thanks for the brightness and geniality of the day; the sordid wretch upon whose pocket the appeal for aid had never had effect, gave thanks that there was one less excuse for giving; the poor wretch whose salary, barely large enough to support him when at full-tide, had been cut down to panic level, that his watchful friends had given him one good meal whose beneficent remembrance would cheer him till the stringency of the times should relax; the clerk and the workman gave thanks for one additional Sunday; and the minister, imbued with a feeling of self-satisfaction, gave thanks that, with all the advantages of Sunday, Thanksgiving Day only required of him one sermon. The business portion of the city presented an appearance of serenity which suggested the Day of Rest of the coming municipal administration, the only wholesale and retail places of business open to public patronage being the saloons. The churches in which services were announced were devoutly thronged, and the words of the preacher listened to with an attention quite unusual. Surely no Thanksgiving Day could have been more grateful to the city or more devoutly observed.

I don’t know how many saloons were open, but the Daily Tribune covered religious services at 14 churches and one synagogue.

President Grant’s proclamation stated: “Gradually but, under the providence of God, surely, as we trust, the nation is recovering from the lingering results of a dreadful civil strife.” Down South The Daily Phoenix in Columbia, South Carolina didn’t review Thanksgiving in that city. In its November 27, 1873 issue (image 2) the paper noted “To-day being Thanksgiving Day, the Post Office will be open from 5 to 6 P. M.” and “Thanksgiving Day being regarded as a national holiday, no paper will be issued from the office to-morrow.” When they got back to work on the 29th, the newspapermen only had this to say about the national holiday and the next day: “The weather, Thanksgiving Day, was very unpleasant, and yesterday morning there appeared to be but slight improvement; in the afternoon, however, it cleared off, and the sun shone out beautifully.” (image 2) According to an advertisement on page 3 of the November 27th issue, there was entertainment from New York City available on Thanksgiving Day.

The Daily Phoenix, November 27, 1873 page 3

The Daily Phoenix November 27, 1873 page 2

packed house in Columbia

Chapmans must have been really good

The image of the Chapman sisters (who performed Thanksgiving Eve in Columbia) is from the Library of Congress, same for the photo of General Grant

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, Postbellum Society, Reconstruction | Tagged Burlesque, Chicago Illinois, Columbia South Carolina, Thanksgiving, The Chapman Sisters (performers), The Daily Phoenix, Ulysses S. Grant | Leave a comment