Lincoln on Ebay: Photographs
By Samuel P. Wheeler | July 4, 2008
A couple of photographs caught my attention this week on Ebay. The sellers do not provide much information about either of these photographs. I thought we might fill in some of the gaps.
The Lincoln photograph was taken on Tuesday, February 9, 1864 by Anthony Berger, the manager of Brady’s Gallery. It should look pretty familiar. This was one of the images artist Vitor D. Brenner used when he designed the penny.
This image was taken on the same day:
Again, the image should look familiar. It appears on the $5 dollar bill.
Let’s take a look at another auction, this time, featuring Mary Todd Lincoln:
According to the seller description:
Very clean copy by Joseph Ward of Boston as stamped on the back. Card is trimmed along left side and all corners to fit in album. Mary is dressed in black, I assume this was taken after April 15th, 1865. Maybe it’s just a dark dress?
Well, no. The photograph was taken during the Autumn of 1863. President Lincoln was still very much alive; however, the owner is correct to assume Mary was in mourning. Her third son, Willie, had died the previous February.
According to William H. Townsend, this image was “the right-hand image of a sterograph card published by E. & H. T. Anthony Company in 1865.” It is one of only two stereograph photographs of Mrs. Lincoln made during her lifetime.
Topics: Family, Lincoln on Ebay, Photographs, Pop Culture | No Comments »
Gettysburg: The Superbowl for Civil War Re-Enactors
By Samuel P. Wheeler | July 3, 2008
Gettysburg is the World Series and Superbowl rolled into one for Civil War re-enactors. An estimated 15,000 “living historians,” clad in wool uniforms and bearing muskets, will converge on the little town in Pennsylvania throughout the week to mark the 145th anniversary of the battle. Forget high gas prices, rain coulds are the only thing organizers are worried about. As long as the sun stays out, they expect thousands of spectators to attend the events.
Civil War re-enactments are nothing new. “The people have been re-enacting for many years,” an organizer said, but since the 1993 movie Gettysburg, the hobby has seen a dramatic increase.
In an average year, about 3,500 re-enactors attend the event at Gettysburg. Yet, this year organizers are expecting more than four times that number. Why the dramatic increase? Organizers say any anniversary ending in a 0 or 5 attracts large numbers. This year, the 145th anniversary of the battle, is a big deal, but it will pale in comparison to the re-enactment scheduled for 2013, the 150th anniversary of the battle.
As you might imagine, the event is generating a great deal of press. Here is a small sample of some of the most recent stories:
Battle of Gettysburg Re-Enactment May Be Biggest Ever
Gettysburg’s 145th Anniversary Set for this Weekend
Stage Set For Battle Re-Enactment
Town Marks 145 Years Since Battle
Annual Gettysburg Walks To Begin
Topics: Military, Soldiers, Upcoming Events | No Comments »
Gettysburg: 145 Years Later
By Samuel P. Wheeler | July 1, 2008
What do you think about when you hear the word Gettysburg?
The word is almost synonymous with the war itself. It represents, at least to many of us, the most important battle, the key moment, or the turning point in the American Civil War. Civil War enthusiasts might debate the validity of such statements; for example, Vicksburg was a more strategic victory than Gettysburg, was it not? However, such arguments inevitably fail to address the larger point: Gettysburg occupies a unique position in both American history and the popular imagination.
The word Gettysburg reminds us of the people who participated in the battle. There are the Generals, from Robert E. Lee and James Longstreet to George Meade and Winfield Scott Hancock. There are lesser-known figures, such as the college professor from Maine, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who distinguished himself at Little Round Top, as well as the 70-year-old citizen soldier, John Burns, who picked up his musket and fell in with the Union soldiers. And then there are more controversial folks, such as the conspicuously absent JEB Stuart, the tragic George Pickett, or even the insubordinate Dan Sickles.
Still others might not even immediately think of the battle itself. Instead, when they hear the word Gettysburg, they might recall the most well-known speech in American history, Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address,” delivered more than four months after the battle took place.
I understand what Gettysburg means to most of the folks who write history textbooks.
But it means something more.
When I hear the word Gettysburg, I think back to photographs like the one at the top of this post. Horrific images. Sacrifice. Pain and suffering may cause a war, but they are also some of the most horrific consequences of war.
The guns fired for three days at Gettysburg. Union and Confederate casualties hovered around 50,000. But numbers fail to tell the story.
Poet Walt Whitman told us to be careful of neat paragraphs in books that proclaim to tell the story of battles like Gettysburg:
Future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background of countless minor scenes and interiors, (not the official surface courteousness of the Generals, not the few great battles) of the Secession war, and it is best they should not–the real war will never get in the books.
Today is the 145th anniversary of the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Topics: Military, Soldiers | No Comments »
Giants of the Nineteenth Century
By Samuel P. Wheeler | June 30, 2008
Do you know who else was born on February 12, 1809?
The father of the theory of evolution, Charles Darwin, was born on the same day as Abraham Lincoln.
Malcom Jones of Newsweek thinks this coincidence is a big deal, but he is not alone. Not one, but two dual biographies will hit bookstores next year, the Lincoln-Darwin bicentennial.
This week’s edition of Newsweek features a curious article titled, “Who was More Important: Lincoln or Darwin?”
I’m usually not a fan of these either/or type articles, but to say the least, the article caught my eye. And no, I won’t ruin the suspense by telling you who won the either/or challenge, you can read that for yourself. Instead, I want to point out one thing.
Jones begins the piece by claiming both Darwin and Lincoln, in addition to sharing the same birthday, had a great deal in common:
- Both lost their mothers in early childhood
- Both suffered from depression
- Both wrestled with religious doubt
- Both had a strained relationship with his father
- Both spent the better part of their 20s trying to settle on a career
- Both men were private and guarded
- Both lost children to early death
- Both men reached the pinnacle of their professions around the age of 50
- Neither man gave much evidence of his future greatness until well into middle age
Jones goes into much greater detail with each of these points, but you get the idea. I suspect the authors of the upcoming dual biographies might go in a similar direction. However, I would encourage them to proceed with caution.
Inherent dangers lurk between the pages of any dual biography. Such books are designed to compare and contrast the biographical details of each man; however, in some cases, I fear the details of one man’s life are shaped and even skewed to provide an appropriate counterpoint to a detail in the other man’s life.
That being said, when carefully written and edited, I think dual biographies can be tremendously useful. Someone might buy a Lincoln-Darwin biography because they are interested in Lincoln, but while reading the book, they are introduced to Darwin. Fantastic! The field of Lincoln studies abounds with many fine examples of dual biography. Three that come to mind are:
Topics: Bicentennial, Legacy, New Books | 2 Comments »
Lincoln on Ebay: Un-Reconstructed Southerner
By Samuel P. Wheeler | June 27, 2008
This week’s edition of Lincoln on Ebay comes to us in the form of a letter, written some eight months after the assassination.
D. M. Wharton, a citizen of Huntsville, Alabama, wrote his nephew a letter on November 4, 1865. He begins with the usual pleasantries by thanking his nephew for sending such a nice letter a couple of weeks back and shares his optimism that pre-war “prosperity was once more drawing upon you.”
But then the cold reality of Reconstruction slaps him in the face. His letter takes an abrupt turn.
The “Black troops who were placed over the white citizens to mortify and spook us had been withdrawn,” he announces, adding, “the prosperity of the African race, has caused much anxiety and loss to the honest part of our citizens.”
After condemning black troops, as well as ”the prosperity of the African race,” Wharton turns to the new president, Andrew Johnson. He has heard that Johnson has been making enemies in Washington, refusing to work with the Republicans in humiliating the South. “I am glad to hear ‘Johnson is now acting like a gentleman,” he declares. If the rumors were true, Wharton had no doubt that “we shall soon hear of the liberation of Jeff Davis, who was cruelly kept in confinement for obeying the orders of his own sovereign state.”
Now thoroughly warmed up, Wharton confronts the Lincoln assassination. Republicans tried to make the case that Davis “had some hand in killing Lincoln, but could not[.]“ According Wharton, neither Davis nor the Confederacy had a hand in killing Lincoln; it was God Himself who did the deed.
“The god of justice had him promptly summoned,” he concludes, “decree of the almighty god ‘Sic Semper Tyrannis.’”
John Wilkes Booth could hardly have said it any better.
Topics: Anti-Lincoln, Assassination, Confederacy, Lost Cause, Soldiers | No Comments »
The Problem with Statues
By Samuel P. Wheeler | June 26, 2008
The United States Supreme Court is making headlines today. They have struck down the District of Columbia’s 32-year ban on handguns, claiming it is a clear violation of the Second Amendment to the U. S. Constitution:
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
The decision hinged on a critical point. Does the Second Amendment protect an individual’s right to own a gun no matter what, or does the amendment simply protect the rights of the state militias?
In a 5-4 decision today, the Supreme Court decided that the Constitution does not permit, “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.”
I’m sure political commentators on radio and cable, as well as the internet and various print media outlets, will be discussing the decision for some time to come; however, I want to move in a different direction.
On this date in 1857, Abraham Lincoln spoke about a recent controversial Supreme Court decision.
He held no office; in fact, his lone term in Congress had ended almost a decade earlier. Though he had a burning desire to enter the national spotlight, in 1857 he was merely a lawyer from central Illinois.
The U. S. Supreme Court had recently handed down its controversial decision in the Dred Scott case. Though Lincoln had reverence for the law and was absolutely devoted to the American political process, he disagreed with the court’s decision. Moreover, he was appalled when Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas came out in support of the decision.
Lincoln began his speech by revealing Douglas’ motives:
There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people, to the idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races; and Judge Douglas evidently is basing his chief hope, upon the chances of being able to appropriate the benefit of this disgust to himself. If he can, by much drumming and repeating, fasten the odium of that idea upon his adversaries, he thinks he can struggle through the storm. He therefore clings to this hope, as a drowning man to the last plank.
Therefore, Douglas has used the Dred Scott decision to distort the Republican Party’s position on racial equality:
[Douglas] finds the Republicans insisting that the Declaration of Independence includes ALL men, black as well as white; and forth-with he boldly denies that it includes negroes at all, and proceeds to argue gravely that all who contend it does, do so only because they want to vote, and eat, and sleep, and marry with negroes!
Lincoln objected to Douglas’ caricature:
Now I protest against that counterfeit logic which concludes that, because I do not want a black woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. I need not have her for either, I can just leave her alone. In some respects she certainly is not my equal; but in her natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands without asking leave of any one else, she is my equal, and the equal of all others.
Lincoln told the crowd that the Dred Scott decision was absolutely revolutionary because the Supreme Court had reinterpreted the meaning of America’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence:
Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the Dred Scott case, admits that the language of the Declaration is broad enough to include the whole human family, but he and Judge Douglas argue that the authors of that instrument did not intend to include negroes, by the fact that they did not at once, actually place them on an equality with the whites. Now this grave argument comes to just nothing at all, by the other fact, that they did not at once, or ever afterwards, actually place all white people on an equality with one or another. And this is the staple argument of both the Chief Justice and the Senator, for doing this obvious violence to the plain unmistakable language of the Declaration.
Lincoln fundamentally disagreed with their interpretation. He revealed how he interpreted the document:
I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness, in what respects they did consider all men created equal—equal in “certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This they said, and this meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere. The assertion that “all men are created equal” was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration, nor for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be, thank God, it is now proving itself, a stumbling block to those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should re-appear in this fair land and commence their vocation they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack.
Again, Lincoln reverted back to Senator Douglas. This, Lincoln claims, is how Douglas interprets the same Declaration of Independence:
No man can vindicate the character, motives and conduct of the signers of the Declaration of Independence except upon the hypothesis that they referred to the white race alone, and not to the African, when they declared all men to have been created equal—that they were speaking of British subjects on this continent being equal to British subjects born and residing in Great Britain—that they were entitled to the same inalienable rights, and among them were enumerated life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The Declaration was adopted for the purpose of justifying the colonists in the eyes of the civilized world in withdrawing their allegiance from the British crown, and dissolving their connection with the mother country.”
Not only was Douglas’ interpretation wrong, but Lincoln claims it is ultimately dangerous to the American experiment in popular government.
My good friends, read that carefully over some leisure hour, and ponder well upon it—see what a mere wreck—mangled ruin—it makes of our once glorious Declaration.
Why, according to this, not only negroes but white people outside of Great Britain and America are not spoken of in that instrument. The English, Irish and Scotch, along with white Americans, were included to be sure, but the French, Germans and other white people of the world are all gone to pot along with the Judge’s inferior races.
I had thought the Declaration promised something better than the condition of British subjects; but no, it only meant that we should be equal to them in their own oppressed and unequal condition. According to that, it gave no promise that having kicked off the King and Lords of Great Britain, we should not at once be saddled with a King and Lords of our own.
I had thought the Declaration contemplated the progressive improvement in the condition of all men everywhere; but no, it merely “was adopted for the purpose of justifying the colonists in the eyes of the civilized world in withdrawing their allegiance from the British crown, and dissolving their connection with the mother country.” Why, that object having been effected some eighty years ago, the Declaration is of no practical use now—mere rubbish—old wadding left to rot on the battle-field after the victory is won.
Lincoln underscored what the Dred Scott decision had done by reinterpreting the Declaration of Independence:
I understand you are preparing to celebrate the “Fourth,” tomorrow week. What for? The doings of that day had no reference to the present; and quite half of you are not even descendants of those who were referred to at that day. But I suppose you will celebrate; and will even go so far as to read the Declaration. Suppose after you read it once in the old fashioned way, you read it once more with Judge Douglas’ version. It will then run thus: “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all British subjects who were on this continent eighty-one years ago, were created equal to all British subjects born and then residing in Great Britain.”
And now I appeal to all—to Democrats as well as others,—are you really willing that the Declaration shall be thus frittered away?—thus left no more at most, than an interesting memorial of the dead past? thus shorn of its vitality, and practical value; and left without the germ or even the suggestion of the individual rights of man in it?
With that being said, I cannot stress this point enough: throughout the speech, Lincoln clearly says America’s different races should remain separated. Indeed, he went on to develop that idea in the Lincoln-Douglas debates a year later (see the Charleston Debate, for instance).
It is incredibly important to acknowledge Lincoln’s views on racial equality. This is how Lincoln saw race in 1857:
But Judge Douglas is especially horrified at the thought of the mixing blood by the white and black races: agreed for once—a thousand times agreed. There are white men enough to marry all the white women, and black men enough to marry all the black women; and so let them be married. On this point we fully agree with the Judge; and when he shall show that his policy is better adapted to prevent amalgamation than ours we shall drop ours, and adopt his.
Lincoln argues that the Republican position to oppose the spread of slavery offers a practical solution to preventing the “amalgamation” of the races. Using statistics, Lincoln illustrates his case:
Let us see. In 1850 there were in the United States, 405,751, mulattoes. Very few of these are the offspring of whites and free blacks; nearly all have sprung from black slaves and white masters. A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation but as an immediate separation is impossible the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas. That is at least one self-evident truth. A few free colored persons may get into the free States, in any event; but their number is too insignificant to amount to much in the way of mixing blood. In 1850 there were in the free states, 56,649 mulattoes; but for the most part they were not born there—they came from the slave States, ready made up. In the same year the slave States had 348,874 mulattoes all of home production. The proportion of free mulattoes to free blacks—the only colored classes in the free states—is much greater in the slave than in the free states. It is worthy of note too, that among the free states those which make the colored man the nearest to equal the white, have, proportionably the fewest mulattoes the least of amalgamation. In New Hampshire, the State which goes farthest towards equality between the races, there are just 184 Mulattoes while there are in Virginia—how many do you think? 79,775, being 23,126 more than in all the free States together.
These statistics show that slavery is the greatest source of amalgamation; and next to it, not the elevation, but the degeneration of the free blacks. Yet Judge Douglas dreads the slightest restraints on the spread of slavery, and the slightest human recognition of the negro, as tending horribly to amalgamation.
I have said that the separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation. I have no right to say all the members of the Republican party are in favor of this, nor to say that as a party they are in favor of it. There is nothing in their platform directly on the subject. But I can say a very large proportion of its members are for it, and that the chief plank in their platform—opposition to the spread of slavery—is most favorable to that separation.
Such separation, if ever effected at all, must be effected by colonization; and no political party, as such, is now doing anything directly for colonization. Party operations at present only favor or retard colonization incidentally. The enterprise is a difficult one; but “when there is a will there is a way;” and what colonization needs most is a hearty will. Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and self-interest. Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and, at the same time, favorable to, or, at least, not against, our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be. The children of Israel, to such numbers as to include four hundred thousand fighting men, went out of Egyptian bondage in a body.
What do we make of all this?
First, these words often make people uncomfortable. Many of us don’t want to think the author of the Emancipation Proclamation ever said or believed such things. To the folks who say highlighting Lincoln’s rhetoric in 1857 is somehow sacrilegious, especially on a site like LincolnStudies.com, I sharply disagree. I don’t write hagiography; I write history. I would encourage my readers to hold themselves to the same standard. Lincoln was not semi-divine; he was thoroughly human.
Second, these words often make other people quite happy. Challenge a neo-Confederate to quote Lincoln’s 1837 protest statement on slavery in the Illinois State Legislature or his 1864 letter to Albert G. Hodges and you’ll get a blank stare, but if you mention the statements like the ones quoted throughout this post, you’ll see their eyes light up. Both the hagiographers and the neo-Confederates operate under a similar set of standards: both are interested in creating cartoon figures, not historical actors.
Third, these words tell us a great deal about the Nineteenth Century. The crowd in Springfield cheered when they heard Lincoln’s words. There is a reason why books like Lerone Bennett’s Forced into Glory are written, but in my view, such interpretations inevitably miss the mark. Was Lincoln a racist or was he the Great Emancipator? Well, it simply isn’t that easy.
Lincoln wrestled with tough questions throughout his life. This speech from 1857 documents the answers he had found at that moment in time.
But Lincoln never stopped looking for answers. His ideas were not set in stone in 1857.
His ideas evolved over the next year when he met Douglas in debates throughout Illinois. As history presented different variables, Lincoln’s ideas evolved. The election of 1860 certainly transformed the political landscape, while the most horrific tragedy in American history forced him to rethink his position even further.
Modern political discourse has deceived us into thinking politicians are supposed to be marble statues long before they die. We seem to delight in confronting politicians with conflicting statements; we are very quick to brand someone a “flip-flopper.”
Of course, that is the problem with statues. They lock a person into a rigid pose; they deny a person the ability to grow.
But consider this. Though America is filled with statues of Abraham Lincoln, how many of them depict the way he looked in 1857?
Topics: Current Politics, Emancipation, Historiography, Rhetoric, Slavery, Supreme Court | No Comments »
One Man’s Rebellion Record Blog is No More
By Samuel P. Wheeler | June 25, 2008
I’m sorry to report that Rob Wick has decided to pull the plug on his blog, One Man’s Rebellion Record.
Believe me, not all blogs are created equal, but his blog was one of those that seemed to raise the bar in terms of quality posts. I hope the blog will remain available online; there really is a lot there that is worth reading.
Posts like “Five books on Lincoln’s Assassination You Should Have” come to mind, as do his posts on Everton J. Conger (later life), one of the folks responsible for capturing Lincoln’s assassin.
And another thing. Now that the One Man’s Rebellion Record is no more, what corner of the blogosphere will serve up Civil War historiography quite the same?
That’s right, Wick produced a series of highly detailed portraits of historians from James G. Randall (Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, ) and Bell Irwin Wiley (Part 2 ), to Otto Eisenschimal!
When the A. Lincoln Blog called it quits earlier this year, LincolnStudies.com extended an invitation to Brian Dirck to post here if he should ever get the itch again.
We gladly extend the same invitation to Rob Wick. If he should ever feel the need to sound off in blog format, he is welcome to do so in a guest post at LincolnStudies.com!
Topics: Blogs, Historiography | No Comments »
Joseph T. Glatthaar, General Lee’s Army
By Samuel P. Wheeler | June 24, 2008
I have been making my way through Joseph T. Glatthaar’s new book, General Lee’s Army: From Victory to Collapse 
To put it simply, Glatthaar has produced one of the most detailed portraits of the Confederate army I have ever seen.
The research is meticulous. Based on primary documents, manuscripts, published letters, and diaries of about 4,000 soldiers, Glatthaar has constructed a representative sample of some 600 Confederate soldiers. His database allows him to:
…address some of the most important questions, many of them answered unsatisfactorily by previous scholars, about who these soldiers and their families were and what their wartime experiences were like, including background, slave ownership, occupation, wealth, family, desertion, conscription, illnesses, casualties, and many more. (xiv).
Glatthaar confronts these findings early in his narrative.
For example, one of the most loaded questions regarding the Confederate Army goes something like this: “How many Confederate soldiers were slave owners?”
Though it is a common question, historians have never been able to arrive at a simple answer.
For example, in For Cause and Comrades, James M. McPherson tried to explain why men fought in the Civil War. He constructed a database of 1,076 soldiers, 647 Union and 429 Confederate. When he turned to Confederate motivations, he was surprised to find “only 20 percent of the sample of 429 Southern soldiers explicitly voiced proslavery convictions in their letters or diaries” (p. 110). However, McPherson acknowledged that none at all dissented from that view.
But what did that mean? If one in five Confederate soldiers expressed proslavery convictions, did that mean 20 percent of Confederate soldiers were slave owners? No. Only about one-third of Confederate soldiers who expressed pro-slavery convictions came from a slaveholding family. While McPherson provided anecdotal evidence, his methodology prevented him from arriving at a simple answer.
Glatthaar is able to do what previous historians have failed to do, but be warned, his answer is not a simple one.
He finds that 10.27 percent of enlistees in the Confederate army in 1861 personally owned slaves (p. 19). While just 4.95 percent of whites owned slaves in the Confederacy, one might conclude the average Confederate enlistee was more than twice as likely to be a slave owner as a common citizen in the Confederacy. However, the conclusion fails to tell the whole story.
Glatthaar finds that more than one in every four (25.62 percent) enlistees lived with a parent who was a slave owner.
If we combine those enlistees who owned slaves (10.27 percent) with the number who lived with parents who owned slaves (25.62), we find that 35.89 percent of enlistees either owned slaves or lived with parents who did.
While 24.9 percent of Confederate households owned slaves, we might conclude that volunteers in 1861 were 42 percent more likely than the general population to own slaves themselves or to live with family members who did. Yet again, Glatthaar cautions against forming that conclusion just yet.
He finds that one in every ten volunteers did not own slaves themselves, but lived in households headed by non-family members who did.
If we combine the 10 percent of enlistees who lived with non-family members who owned slaves, with the 35.89 percent figure we arrived at earlier (volunteers who were slave owners or who lived with parents who owned slaves), we find that nearly half of all Confederate enlistees in 1861 either lived with slaveholders or were slave owners themselves.
Glatthaar concludes his point:
Nor did the direct exposure stop there. Untold numbers of enlistees rented land from, sold crops to, or worked for slaveholders. In the final tabulation, the vast majority of the volunteers of 1861 had a direct connection to slavery. For slaveholder and nonslaveholder alike, slavery lay at the heart of the Confederate nation. The fact that their paper notes frequently depicted scenes of slaves demonstrated the institution’s central role and symbolic value to the Confederacy. (p.20)
Of course, slavery is merely one of the many issues that Glatthaar deals with.
Is Glatthaar’s book worth reading? Yes. It is an important book; it is a complex, yet highly readable, analysis of General Lee’s Army. I know I’ll be using it for quite some time.
Topics: Book Reviews, Confederacy, New Books, Slavery | 2 Comments »
Soldiers in the Same Struggle: Jim Limber and Black Confederates
By Samuel P. Wheeler | June 23, 2008
A few weeks ago I mentioned that the statue controversy in Richmond was back in the news.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans have unveiled their proposed statue design, featuring Jefferson Davis (pictured above).
Their design is breathtaking.
Compare it to the current statue of Lincoln and his son, Tad:
Notice: Lincoln is sitting, while Davis is standing; Lincoln is looking down, but Davis is staring defiantly. But that’s not all.
Who are the children in these statues?
Lincoln is with his son Tad, but Davis appears with two little boys. One of them is his son Joe, while the other one is not related to him. His name is Jim Limber, a mixed-race child who allegedly stayed with the Davis family. Little is known about him, but that hasn’t stopped partisans from using him to reconstruct Davis’ complicated record regarding race.
Now that the SCV has officially enlisted Jim Limber in their ongoing public relations war to rewrite America’s Civil War narrative, I suppose we might add his name to the growing list of “black Confederates” who are soldiers in the same struggle.
Though a final decision on whether to include the Davis, et al. statue is expected in August, we must recognize that the verdict doesn’t mean much. The SCV will not accept their cause is lost.
Topics: Confederacy, Current Politics, Historiography, Lost Cause, Slavery | No Comments »
Lincoln on Ebay: Everything that Says A. Lincoln is not a Lincoln
By Samuel P. Wheeler | June 20, 2008
The Lincolniana on Auction beat is overflowing with examples today; however, I thought it might be fun to explore a couple potentially dubious items.
First up, let’s start with a seemingly innocuous textbook, circa 1835 (pictured above). Though the owner provides very few details about the book, I did a quick Google Book search of one of the pages and found a match. The textbook is probably Adams’s New Arithmetic, by Daniel Adams (Keene, New Hampshire: J. & J. W. Prentiss).
Why is this book part of our Lincolniana on Auction series? Well, take a look at this picture:
Look closely at the signature at the bottom of the photo. The owner offers this explanation:
Signed on the bottom of the first page is the signature of our beloved president–Abraham Lincoln–the book has many anatations and inscriptions that we cannot make out but the history letter that comes with the auction states–”Given to my friend 1844–read this so you can outfigure them in Washington.”
That’s all the owner says; however, before you dismiss this item, consider this:
The item description mentions a number of intriguing dates. First, the year 1844 was an important one if we’re talking about a textbook containing Lincoln’s signature. Lincoln made a trip back to southern Indiana in 1844 to campaign for Henry Clay and the Whig ticket. This is pure speculation, but would it be out of the question for one of his old Indiana neighbors to give him a textbook he might have used as a boy in southern Indiana?
Second, the owner lists two possible publication dates for this book. First, the item description claims the book was published, circa 1835. This, of course, would have been too late for Lincoln to have used this book in southern Indiana. He was living in New Salem in 1835. However, later in the description, the owner claims to see the date 1827. This date falls well within the time frame of Lincoln’s time in southern Indiana.
Third, if Lincoln did indeed sign this book and give it to someone heading to Washington in 1844, who might it be? Perhaps it was Representative John J. Hardin?
Again, notice how much speculation is involved with each of these points. Let me stress that point. The owner provides scant information and we have added in historical evidence to create a plausible scenario. Is it worth $775 to see if this Davinci Code-like scenario has any validity?
Let’s take a look at another one.
The owner claims this torn piece of paper features the signature of Abraham Lincoln, 1865.
Here is the provenance, directly from the owner:
My daughter was bequeathed a box of family heirlooms from her God Mother which consisted of a book signed by Lincoln and sold to help pay for college expenses. In the same box there were old documents, a deed to land in California from 1910, a signature on a document signed by President Theodore Roosevelt, an old reel of film with footage of President Eisenhower and the lincoln signature on this tattered piece of paper.
When we know absolutely nothing about the original document, I would suggest we have no option but to be skeptical.
Without commenting on the handwriting, I wonder about the mere placement of the signature. For instance, notice the signature is on either the upper right or left corner of a sheet of paper. How ofen did Lincoln sign his name in this place? Moreover, when Lincoln took the time to affix the date below his signature, he usually wrote the month, as well as the day of the month. Simply writing the year seems out of character.
Shakespeare reminds us “all that glisters is not gold.” I’d like to add that everything that says A. Lincoln is not a Lincoln.
Topics: Lincoln on Ebay | No Comments »
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