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

Thanksgiving, federal style

Posted on November 23, 2023 by SUMPTER

Harper’s Weekly, November 29, 1862

When the Civil War started, Thanksgiving was not a national holiday. There seemed to be a tradition of Thanksgiving with turkey in November. Sometimes states (and possibly also localities) declared Thanksgiving Days for a variety of reasons. According to Pilgrim Hall Museum, Abraham Lincoln’s second Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1863 was issued on October 3rd. It was “the first in the unbroken string of annual presidential Thanksgiving proclamations, [and] is regarded as the true beginning of the national Thanksgiving holiday. Actually, it was a resurrection and not a beginning, since there had been earlier national Thanksgivings, beginning with those proclaimed by the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War.” Here is the first national Thanksgiving proclamation in 1777 per Pilgrim Hall:

Thanksgiving Proclamation 1777
By the Continental Congress
The First National Thanksgiving Proclamation

IN CONGRESS

November 1, 1777
FORASMUCH as it is the indispensable Duty of all Men to adore the superintending Providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with Gratitude their Obligation to him for Benefits received, and to implore such farther Blessings as they stand in Need of: And it having pleased him in his abundant Mercy, not only to continue to us the innumerable Bounties of his common Providence; but also to smile upon us in the Prosecution of a just and necessary War, for the Defense and Establishment of our unalienable Rights and Liberties; particularly in that he hath been pleased, in so great a Measure, to prosper the Means used for the Support of our Troops, and to crown our Arms with most signal success:

It is therefore recommended to the legislative or executive Powers of these UNITED STATES to set apart THURSDAY, the eighteenth Day of December next, for SOLEMN THANKSGIVING and PRAISE: That at one Time and with one Voice, the good People may express the grateful Feelings of their Hearts, and consecrate themselves to the Service of their Divine Benefactor; and that, together with their sincere Acknowledgments and Offerings, they may join the penitent Confession of their manifold Sins, whereby they had forfeited every Favor; and their humble and earnest Supplication that it may please GOD through the Merits of JESUS CHRIST, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of Remembrance; That it may please him graciously to afford his Blessing on the Governments of these States respectively, and prosper the public Council of the whole: To inspire our Commanders, both by Land and Sea, and all under them, with that Wisdom and Fortitude which may render them fit Instruments, under the Providence of Almighty GOD, to secure for these United States, the greatest of all human Blessings, INDEPENDENCE and PEACE: That it may please him, to prosper the Trade and Manufactures of the People, and the Labor of the Husbandman, that our Land may yield its Increase: To take Schools and Seminaries of Education, so necessary for cultivating the Principles of true Liberty, Virtue and Piety, under his nurturing Hand; and to prosper the Means of Religion, for the promotion and enlargement of that Kingdom, which consisteth “in Righteousness, Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost.”

And it is further recommended, That servile Labor, and such Recreation, as, though at other Times innocent, may be unbecoming the Purpose of this Appointment, be omitted on so solemn an Occasion.

Apparently Congress’s recommendation had to be agreeable to the states. According to the Library of Congress, the State of Massachusetts-Bay officially approved on November 27th:

Massachusetts-Bay agrees

I didn’t see any evidence at the Library of Congress that the State of New Hampshire agreed to the Congressional recommendation, but on November 17th New Hampshire did proclaim its own Thanksgiving Day for December 4th, two weeks before Congress’s suggestion. This is the text of New Hampshire’s proclamation per the Library of Congress:

STATE OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.

A PROCLAMATION,

For a General Thanksgiving.

IT being the United Voice of Reason and Revelation, that Men should praise the Lord for hisGoodness and for his wonderful Works to the Children of Men; and the Year, now drawing to a close, being distinguished by many great and signal Favours of Divine Providence, conferred on this, and the other United States of America amidst our deep Distresses, and notwithstanding our manifold and aggravated Offences; sensible that Ingratitude is the basest of Characters, which, with deep Abhorrence we should ever avoid; and in order that our great and bountiful Benefactor may have the praise and glory, due for his Mercies, in the most conspicuous and solemn Manner ascribed to him:

THE COUNCIL and Representatives of this STATE, in General Court assembled, have appointed THURSDAY, the fourth Day of December next, to be a Day of public THANKSGIVING throughout this STATE; and hereby solemnly exhort and require both Ministers and People, of every Profession, religiously to devote the said Day to the Purpose aforesaid; and with unfeigned Gratitude and Ardour address the all-gracious Jehovah with their united Ascriptions of Praise, for the essential Benignity of his Nature, and the exuberant Profusions of his Goodness—for the paternal Tenderness with whichthe Corrections of his Rod, so abundantly deserved by our Back-slidings and heinous Offences, have been managed, and the rich Mercy he hath intermixed with his Judgments; particularly that he hath so far supported the great American Cause, and defeated the Counsels and Efforts of our merciless Oppressors. That he hath smiled on our Councils and Arms, and crown’d them with signal Success, especially in the Northern Department, in turning the Advantage the Enemy seemed to have gotten against us, by possessing themselves of the Fortress of Ticonderoga, to their own Confusion—and giving one of the principal Armies of Britain wholly into our Hands, with so little Blood-shed; in which great Event, so interesting to the important Cause depending, the Arm of the LORD of Host, the GOD of the Armies of Israel, is conspicuously manifest, demanding the Power, the Glory, and the Victory to be ascribed to him, and inviting our further Hope and Confidence in his Mercy. That he hath preserved our Sea-Coasts in safety—preserv’d the inestimably precious Life of our worthy General, and Commander in Chief, and so many of our Officers and Soldiers; and that the present Campaign, pursued by our Enemies with such direful Breathings of Cruelty and Slaughter, and such sirenuous [sic – probably strenuous] Exertions on one Side and another, has not been more bloody. That he is mercifully continuing the several American States firmly united in the Common Cause; and giving us such a promising, animating Prospect, of being able (by his further Help) finally to support our Liberty and Independency against all the Power, and Policy of Britain to subject and enslave us. That he hath bless’d us with so much Health in our Camps, and in our Habitations whereby we have been able to carry on the necessary Labours of the Field, while so many were call’d off to Arms. That he hath bless’d us with a very fruitful Season, and given us, in great Plenty, the precious Productions of the Earth for Food and Cloathing, peculiarly precious at a Time when our Imports from abroad are chiefly stop’d, and, therefore, binding the Duty of Gratitude and Praise upon us with encreased Obligation.—And above all, that in the greatness of his Forbearance and long suffering, he is yet continuing to us, an unthankful, unfruitful People, the blessed Gospel of JESUS CHRIST; and our Religious Liberty and Priviledges, by which we have the happiest Advantage for glorifying our Creator and Redeemer, and securing our eternal well-being.

And, as, in present Circumstances, we have Reason to rejoice with trembling, so let the Solemnity be attended with the deepest Humiliation, before the great Sovereign, for our many crying Sins and great Unworthiness of his Favours—begging Forgiveness thro’ the all-atoneing Blood of the Cross; and the plentiful out-pouring of the Divine Spirit, for a general Reformation of Manners and Revival of Religion among us, left [sic – probably lest] being deaf to the loud, united Calls of Judgment and Mercy, we provoke the God of Heaven to forsake us, after all the great Things he hath done for us; and so our unrepented Iniquity prove our Ruin.

And all servile LABOUR is forbidden on said Day.

By Order of the COUNCIL and Assembly, EXETER, November 17th, 1777.
M. Weare, PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL.
E. THOMPSON, Secretary.

GOD save the United-States of AMERICA.

EXETER; Printed by Zechariah Fowle, junr. 1777.

Thanks for Saratoga

treasure in an attic

Much has changed since 1777. Back then Congress recommended that recreation be omitted on the day of Thanksgiving. Nowadays recreation/entertainment is a big part of the celebration. By the late 19th century people played and watched college football on the holiday. The games weren’t only in New York City. Here is a 1910 example from Nashville:

You can see the rest of the newspaper and read more about the game at the Library of Congress. The Library also has more general information about the Globe:

The Nashville Globe was a black-owned and operated publication launched in 1906. Richard Henry Boyd, the primary architect of the Globe, was a former slave from Texas. After teaching himself to read and write, Boyd attended Bishop College in Marshall, Texas, and spent several years organizing churches and Baptist organizations for freedmen. In 1896, Boyd moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and founded the National Baptist Publishing Board (NBPB) and in 1904 the One-Cent Savings Bank. The following year, when the city made it mandatory for all streetcars to be segregated by race, Boyd, along with his son Henry A. Boyd, Dock A. Hart, Charles A. Burrell, and Evans Tyree, formed the Globe Publishing Company. Its purpose was to publish a newspaper to promote a boycott of the city’s streetcars and to combat racial discrimination and social inequalities. The first issue of the Nashville Globe was published in January 1906.

The Republican weekly was published on Fridays at the NBPB’s facilities. Henry A. Boyd and Joseph O. Battle oversaw the editorial content, which focused on dispelling false assumptions perpetuated about African Americans by white mainstream newspapers, speaking out against racial segregation and injustice, and promoting self-help literature and middle-class deportment within the black community. …

I noticed on page 3 of the Thanksgiving Globe that “Negroes are no longer considered slow in foot ball.”

Nashville Globe November 24, 1910 page 3

opposed streetcar segregation

President Laurens

The teams that played the Thanksgiving in Nashville are historically black educational institutions (Fisk and Meharry) that are still in operation today. According to Pilgrim Hall the last general national thanksgiving day before President Lincoln’s 1863 was held in April 1815 in gratitude for the end of the War of 1812. The Presidential Proclamation is still unbroken

From the Library of Congress: Percy Moran’s c1911 painting of Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga – apparently American General Gates refused to accept General Burgoyne’s sword; the newspaper clipping is at the same link as Massachusett’s endorsement of the federal Thanksgiving day – I didn’t see any information about when and where the clipping was published – I think the clipping got a couple dates wrong, Lincoln’s proclamation and Burgoyne’s surrender; part of page 1 of the November 25, 1954 issue of The Key West Citizen – The Thanksgiving article backs up Pilgrim Hall: “In his book “History of Thanksgiving and Proclamations,” H.S.J. Sickel writes that presidential proclamations —but not state or local ones fell into disuse for nearly a half century until revived by Lincoln. …”

One of the places you can find Winslow Homer’s “Thanksgiving in Camp” is at the Internet Archive. The image was published in the November 29, 1862 issue of <Harper’s Weekly, which is available at Internet Archive. That issue also included a cartoon with two turkeys and a Thanksgiving story. I got the photo of R. H. Boyd at Wikipedia. That’s also where I got Lemuel Francis Abbott’s 1781 or 1784 painting of Henry Laurens, who was born in Charleston, South Carolina and was a slave-trader. Henry Laurens served as President of the Continental Congress from November 1, 1777-December 9, 1778. November 1, 1777 was the date of the Congressional Thanksgiving proclamation above. On November 15, 1777 the Continental Congress passed the Articles of Confederation.

Massachusetts Dreamin’

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted in 160 Years Ago, American History, American Society | Tagged Abraham Lincoln, American War of Independence, Artemas Ward, Articles of Confederation, Fisk University, Henry Laurens, Meharry Medical College, Nashville Tennessee, Richard Henry Boyd, State Rights, Thanksgiving, The Nashville Globe | Leave a comment

A death on Kearsarge Avenue

Posted on October 11, 2023 by SUMPTER

Kearsrage vs. Alabama, June 19, 1864

For two years the CSS Alabama wreaked havoc with Union shipping. That stopped on June 19, 1864 when the USS Kearsarge sunk the rebel commerce raider off the coast of France. John Winslow, the Kearsarge’s commander, died at his home in Boston 150 years ago last month. From the October 18, 1873 issue of Harper’s Weekly:

THE LATE ADMIRAL WINSLOW.

We give on this page a portrait of the late Rear-Admiral JOHN A. WINSLOW, the hero of the Kearsage and Alabama fight, who died on Monday, September 29, at his residence on Kearsarge Avenue, Boston Highland, after an illness of nearly two years. The late Admiral was in the sixty-second year of his age, having been born on the 9th of November, 1811, in North Carolina. On the 1st of February, 1827, he entered the Naval Academy as the protégé of DANIEL WEBSTER, having been then a resident of North Carolina. He was with the Falmouth (West India) squadron, in 1829-1831, and in 1833 was promoted to the rank of Passed Midshipman. He was sent to the Boston Navy-yard in 1834, and he accompanied the Brazil squadron in 1835-37. He obtained the commission of Lieutenant December 9, 1839, and subsequently took part in the Mexican War, as chief officer on board the Saratoga, twenty guns, but he was not again actively employed until 1852, when he was detailed for the St. Lawrence, the flag-ship of Commander DULANG. In 1855 he was promoted to the rank of Commander, and ordered to Boston. In 1862, upon the organization of the Mississippi flotilla, he was recalled to active duty with the commission of Captain. On the 16th of July he was appointed to the command of the Kearsarge, and in recognition of his services on board that vessel, he was, after the sinking of the Alabama, promoted to the rank of Commodore; and on the 2d of March, 1870, when a resident of Massachusetts, he obtained the rank of Rear-Admiral, commanding the Pacific fleet. His total sea service was twenty years and ten months; on shore, off duty, thirteen years and one month; unemployed, eleven years and nine months – making a total service of forty-five years and eight months. The late Admiral was a man of rather full habit, with hair thin and quite gray. He dressed plainly, and his manner was quiet and unassuming.

Pilgrim’s descendant

no more Alabama (at sea level)

circular fight

According to Wikipedia, John Ancrum Winslow was “a descendant of Mayflower passenger Mary Chilton and her husband John Winslow, who was a brother of Pilgrim father Edward Winslow.” Also, during the Mexican War Winslow shared a shipboard cabin with Raphael Semmes, the Alabama’s commander.

You can read about The Battle of Cherbourg at Naval History and Heritage Command, where I got three of the images: the top battle scene; Winslow in profile; Kearsarge’s officers on deck “at Cherbourg, France, soon after her 19 June 1864 victory over CSS Alabama. Her Commanding Officer, Captain John A. Winslow, is 3rd from left.”

The 1873 Harper’s Weekly content is from Hathi Trust; the section reproduced above is on page 917. From the Library of Congress: sheet music; a Winslow report and battle map

Captain Winslow 3rd from left

Posted in 150 Years Ago, Naval Matters, Veterans | Tagged Battle off Cherbourg, CSS Alabama, Daniel Webster, John Ancrum Winslow, Mount Kearsarge, Raphael Semmes, USS Kearsarge | Leave a comment

still salient

Posted on September 15, 2023 by SUMPTER

“This country is fortunate in its Gettysburg”

Thirty years after the Battle of Gettysburg, Union General Daniel Sickles’ management of the Third Corps on the second day of the battle was still controversial. From the August 24, 1893 issue of The National Tribune:

THIS country is fortunate in its Gettysburg, a spot where the works of man have joined themselves humbly to the handiwork of the Creator, to lend undying interest to a scene that leaves us without cause to envy our British cousins their possession of Waterloo. In the preservation of this battlefield, and its enrichment by monuments to those who fought or fell there, one sees how human nature craves visible expression for sentiments that stir it deeply.

Gettysburg perpetual and transcendent, so, necessarily, are its controversies; many and various, and shared in about equal number and measure between the hosts that massed, respectively, on and about the Seminary and Cemetery Hills. One of them, coveniently [sic] known to history as the Meade-Sickles controversy, is the subject of this present brief article.

Thanks to the chief actors in this dispute, a full and clear apprehension of its elements is at command. This is not a small matter, where arguments are so often profitless because they revolve about, without touching each other.

It was nearly seven years after the battle when Gen. Meade, his knowledge and judgment refined by time and reflection, his lips and heart unsealed by the privacy of his communication,
OPENED HIS MIND
unreservedly to Col. Benedict, of Vermont, upon the subject of the advancement of the Third Corp line, at the extreme left of the Union position, on the second day of Gettysburg. His confidence remained unviolated for 16 years; then the publication of his letter to Benedict summoned Gen. Sickles, as it were, by a voice from the grave, to his defense. This he rendered with a full measure of that skill in the presentation of an argument or statement for which he is justly distinguished.

Gen. Meade’s final complaint against his former Lieutenant may be thus concisely and accurately summarized: Gen. Sickles was ordered, on the morning of the second
day, to relieve Geary and occupy his position. He knew the position, for Geary informed him of it. That position included Round Top, where Geary had a brigade posted. Geary advised Sickles of the character and importance of Round Top, yet Sickles did not occupy it nor take measures for its occupation.

About noon of that day the Commanding General personally told Sickles that his right was to be at Hancock’s left and his left on Round Top, which elevation the Commanding General pointed out to him. Despite the orders he received, Gen. Sickles placed his right three-quarters of a mile in advance of Hancock and his left a quarter mile in front of the base of Round Top.

Nothing but the advance of the Fifth Corps, a matter not within the knowledge or control of Sickles, saved Round Top from the enemy, who, by planting his artillery there, would have
COMMANDED THE WHOLE FIELD,
with consequences most disastrous to the Union army. This advancement of his lines by Gen. Sickles caused a loss upwards of 12,000 men in killed and wounded, besides practically destroying the Third, half destroying the Fifth, and heavily damaging the Second Corps.

In return for these sacrifices, the Union army gained nothing but a compulsory retreat to the true and prescribed position of the Third Corps.

The losses of this day, added to those of the first day, greatly impaired the spirit and efficiency of the army, and deprived its commander of that audacity in the offense that otherwise he might have possessed.

Little Round Top, not Round Top proper, is presumably the hill to which Gen. Meade refers as occupied by Geary and pointed out by himself to Sickles; yet the accuracy or looseness of the designation leaves uncertain the exact picture of the left that Gen. Meade had in his mind when writing the letter to Col. Benedict. He fails also to take into account the losses and damage inflicted on the enemy in the fight that ended in the forcing back of the Federal line to Cemetery Ridge and Little Round Top, or to apportion the decline of morale in his troops between the affairs of the first and second days.

Small criticisms these in the abstract, perhaps; but not such when Gen. Sickles is so pointedly charged with responsibility for the
LOSS AND DAMAGE
to the army and its commander.

Now for the defense made by Gen. Sickles on the appearance of the Benedict letter. He says, in effect and substance, that he never acquired other knowledge of Geary’s position than the general definition of it by Gen. Hancock in sending Geary to the left in the afternoon of the first day.

Geary’s troops were out of position and massed when he saw them, and Geary gave him no advice nor information on any subject. His order to relieve Geary came after Geary’s troops had moved over to the right, and following Hancock’s definition he took up the high ground to the right of Round Top, commanding the Emmitsburg and Taneytown roads.

After doing this and connecting with the Second Corps to his right he had not the troops with which to occupy Round Top, but aware of its character and importance
he asked Gen. Meade for troops to occupy it.

Gen. Sickles denies that Gen. Meade ever told him that his left was to be on Round Top, which he says is 2,200 yards from Hancock’s left, and would have necessitated the spreading of his small corps out into a skirmish-line to have occupied so wide a front. He adds that his line in such a case would have run through swale, morass, bowlders and tangle unfit for infantry and impracticable for artillery, and that half his artillery could not have found standing room, to say nothing of manuvering.

Before him would have been a commanding ridge at the service of the enemy, who would also have possessed the Emmitsburg and its intersecting roads leading in upon
the Union left.

Gen. Sickles will not permit Gen. Meade, through inadvertence or lapse of memory,
TO ACCUSE HIMSELF
of having assigned the Third Corps to a position that would, so Gen. Sickles contends, have tied his own hands and loosed those of the enemy.

Continuing his defense, Gen. Sickles says that he posted his command in exact conformity to the one, only order he received, from first to last, on the subject of his position. Birney’s Division took up the line that Hancock had ordered Geary to hold, its left at Round Top, its right thrown toward the Cemetery and connecting with Humphreys’s Division, posted between Hancock and Birney.

The picket-line was in the Emmitsburg road. He cites Gen. Meade’s testimony before the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War, in 1864, that Sickles
expressed dissatisfaction with the line assigned him; that he told Sickles to post his troops and take up ground as he deemed best within the limits of the general instructions, and that he had sent Gen. Hunt, the Chief of Artillery, to examine some positions that Sickles wished to occupy, and to give the latter the benefit of his judgment about them.

Not until after all this, declares Gen. Sickles, were his lines advanced, and when, after the attack by the enemy had began, the Commanding General joined him at the front and saw his new dispositions, that commander ordered no change nor proposed any.

With regard to the preservation of Round Top by the Fifth Corps, Gen. Sickles says that no troops came to safeguard it in response to his request made early in the morning. Worse than that, Buford’s cavalry was withdrawn during the morning, uncovering and endangering the whole Union left, and that his energetic representations on this subject were without result. He states that he sent in repeated reports of the preparations the enemy was discovered to be making for an attack upon the Federal left, but these were disregarded. When the attack came ho resisted it successfully for more than two hours without assistance.

Gen. Sickles considers Gen. Meade’s estimate of more than 12,000 killed and wounded on the second day as a gross exaggeration, even if the losses due to the far-off attack on the Federal right be included. He declares that the
THIRD CORPS WAS NOT DESTROYED
in fact or effect, but that its right wing was aggressive and successful to the very close of the action. He denies that the Union forces were driven back to the positions stated by Gen. Meade, and alleges that the advanced position of his corps was held, to the end of the fight, on the right by troops of that corps, and on the left by other troops. He charges the losses that did occur to the strength and persistence of the attack, and, in part, to the delay in coming to his support.

But he asserts the enemy’s loss to have been at least as great as that of the National forces, and holds, therefore, that Gen. Meade had no cause to complain of the result.

There is not room in this article to set out the evidence by which the issues raised by the Meade-Bonedict letter and the rejoinder by Gen. Sickles must be decided. A careful examination of it by the writer leads him to the conclusion that the first position of the Third Corps conformed intelligently and substantially to such orders and information as Gen. Sickles had received.

This disposes of the first charge of neglect or disobedience of orders. Whether the advancement of the line was a wise or unwise movement on the part of Gen. Sickles is a matter on which the present writer does not presume to offer judgment. The preponderance of competent military opinion seems to be against it. Yet the original position was unquestionably a bad one, as Gen. Sickles claims, and the advanced position certainly had the advantages he assigns to it, even if accompanied by disadvantages not appreciated at the time, nor since admitted by him.

Setting aside the technical question of the degree of military skill evinced by Gen. Sickles in moving to the new position instead of staying in the old one, the material question is whether the movement was justifiable at the time it was made and under the circumstances that preceded and attended it.

In 1864 Gen. Meade made the matter a mere and honest difference of judgment between himself and Gen. Sickles. To put the question in that way could afford the
latter no ground of complaint, and he did not, and does not, complain of it.

But in the Benedict letter this variance in judgment is enlarged into
CONTUMACIOUS DISOBEDIENCE
of orders, aggravated (if anything could aggravate such an offense) by enormous damage in its results. This withering accusation is the subject of the defense
made by the accused subordinate.

The accusation is unjust, though the character of Gen. Meade is a warranty that he believed it when he made it. It is in evidence that Gen. Sickles was dissatisfied with the position of his command, and communicated his objections to it, and his desire to move forward to the elevated ground in front, to the Commanding General; also, that Gen. Meade authorized him to post his command according to his discretion, within the limits of the general instructions, and, further, that he sent Gen. Hunt to inspect the proposed positions of Gen. Sickles and to advise and assist him in reference to them.

It is likewise in evidence that Gen. Hunt while desirous to avoid any direct responsibility, and to reserve for the Commanding General the opportunity of decision, was not, upon the whole, unfavorably impressed by the new positions preferred by Gen. Sickles. That he was impressed by the importance of the question whether the Third Corps should stay where it was or go forward is proved by his promise to Gen. Sickles to return at once to Gen. Meade and lay the matter before him.

Thereupon Gen. Sickles waited for the order to go or stay that he confidently expected as the result of Hunt’s visit and promise, but no order came. Convinced
that the enemy was massing in his front for an attack upon him, aware that his flank was uncovered, and believing that to remain in his then position would tie his hands while freeing those of the enemy, he advanced his lines, upon bis own responsibility, at what he conceived to be virtually the last moment of grace left to him before the storm of battle should, burst upon his command. Here, surely, was no disobedience, neglect, contumacy, usurpation of authority,or any other censurable or unmilitary conduct.

On the contrary, here was meritorious action, conducted with every attribute of personal and military-propriety. His generalship may have been grievously at fault, but the conduct of Gen. Sickles was certainly patriotic and soldierly in this affair. Seeing and understanding his situation as he did, he would have been morally culpable had he
NOT ADVANCED HIS LINES.

Two reasons appear in the Benedict letter of 1870 for Gen. Meade’s unfavorable change of opinion respecting the conduct of Gen. Sickles. The first is that Gen. Geary had then recently informed Gen. Meade that he had sent word to Sickles as to the position the latter was to occupy, including Round Top, and the importance of that elevation.

But Gen. Sickles states that he received no communication whatever from Geary; hence, Gen. Meade did him an unintentional wrong in building up a theory of purposeful neglect and disobedience upon Geary’s undelivered communication.

Secondly, Gen. Meade believed that Gen. Sickles had been active in the fomentation of an untruthful and malicious theory, the purport of which is that the advance of the Third Corps brought on an engagement which thwarted an intention and preparation by Gen. Meade to scuttle from the position at Gettysburg without a fight. Gen. Sickles, however, separates himself from those who did spitefully spread this calumny, knowing it to be false.

One cannot help wishing that an opportunity had been given to Gen. Sickles while Gen. Meade lived to vindicate himself from the latter’s unfounded suspicion
that the former was one of the slanderers who so grievously tormented the later years of the Federal commander at Gettysburg.

It was not possible, however, for Gen. Sickles to deny in the lifetime of Gen. Meade an accusation that did not come to his knowledge till after Gen. Meade’s death. They have alike, suffered in feelings and reputation from the perversion of highly meritorious and soldierly conduct into groundless occasion of reproach.

History will in the end set its obliterating seal upon the dual injustice, but the processes of history are painfully slow to those who suffer from injustice.

The advancement of the Third Corps line did not procure the glory of Gettysburg, nor dim it. The fight that followed, but was not caused by the advance, was a glorious one, illuminated as it was by the heroic courage and endurance of those who took part in it. Fought, as it was, in a position chosen, upon high motives, by a commander loyal to his chief and his duty, no shadow of reproach can fall upon it.

Lastly, it was a serviceable, not a useless fight; for it inflicted blows upon the enemy that contributed materially to the final success of the long-drawn and fiercely-waged conflict.

Much honor was justly won at Gettysburg by Meade, and by Sickles, and truth and justice could be but outraged by any attempt to uplift the one by pulling the other down.

Sickles advanced

An appendix in Jacob Hoke’s 1887 The Great Invasion of 1863 also discusses the controversy. It begins (page 570, image 578) with an Abraham Lincoln anecdote:

This appendix also includes part of the 1870 Meade letter to Colonel Benedict and part of an article Confederate General Lafayette McLaws wrote for the Philadelphia Weekly Press in 1886. McLaws sided with Meade. Jacob Hoke thought that at least one of the reasons General Sickles didn’t stay in the main Union line on July 2nd is because General Meade issued a qualified order for Sickles to occupy Little Round Top “provided it was practicable to occupy it.”

You can read all of General Meade’s 1870 letter to George Benedict at LatinAmericanStudies (page 350). In 1892 the Medal of Honor was awarded to George Grenville Benedict for his heroism on July 3, 1863 at Gettysburg. Businessman and author Jacob Hoke lived in Chambersburg, PA during the great invasion.

Colonel Benedict

Meade and other Union generals, September 1863

provided a Confederate take on controversy

Charles F. Benjamin, The National Tribune writer, transferred from the 38th New York Infantry to the 40th on June 5, 1863. According to the New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center, the 40th NY Infantry, ” As part of the 3d brigade, 1st division, 3d corps, Army of the Potomac, from May, 1863, the regiment proceeded from Chancellorsville to Gettysburg, where it again distinguished itself for bravery with a loss of 150 killed, wounded or missing.”

fighter, writer

40th NY monument at Gettysburg

great invasion stymied

From the Library of Congress: the August 24, 1893 issueof The National Tribune; The Gouverneur Kemble Warren statue on Little Round Top – you can see some modern (color) pictures and read more about the general at Stone Sentinels; Jacob Hoke’s 1887 book, which includes the non-Jespersen map, I did not notice a reference for the Sickles-Lincoln anecdote; General Meade and others at Culpeper, Va. in September 1863, includes Warren, Hunt, and Sykes; Lafayette McLaws; cheering Sickles at Gettysburg, July 1913, the general attended the 50th anniversary commemoration.

Hal Jespersen’s map of Day 2 at Gettysburg is from Wikimedia Commons and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported. Also from Wikimedia Commons the the photo of George Benedict; also the 40th New York Infantry monument at Gettysburg – the photo is by Carptrash and is licensed under Creative Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported. The monument is situated just north of Devil’s Den. You can read a very good article about the 40th and the July 2nd battle at Emerging Civil War

[September 16, 2023}I changed the size of a couple images and noted that the picture of Sickles being cheered was at the 50th anniversary commemoration of the battle.

“Cheering Sickles,” Gettysburg, July 1913

Posted in 160 Years Ago, Gettysburg Campaign, Veterans | Tagged 40th New York Infantry Regiment, Battle of Gettysburg, Daniel Sickles, George Gordon Meade, George Grenville Benedict, Gouverneur Kemble Warren, Henry Jackson Hunt, Jacob Hoke, John White Geary, Lafayette McLaws | Leave a comment