Some of my favourite Civil War stories are those involving cunning and wit, and this story about the “dummy ironclad” is one of the best. Shelby Foote tells it better, but this rendition imparts the ingenuity even if it doesn’t compare in the storytelling.
Source: The Union saved an ironclad by deploying a $9 trash decoy – We Are The Mighty
I blogged previously about the new Civil War museum in Richmond. It seems to have officially opened now, and the NYTimes has some reflections on it. I’m fascinated by museum design in general, and designing one in the current fraught historical climate is of particular interest.
The new American Civil War Museum in Richmond, Va., sits next to the James River in the historic Tredegar district, where slaves and immigrants once produced munitions for the Confederate Army. The product of a merger of the American Civil War Center and the Museum of the Confederacy, the new museum seeks to tell an inclusive story of the war in hopes of dispelling some of the myths and misconceptions that still dominate popular understanding.
“This is a period of history that’s been so distorted for a variety of reasons,” the museum’s chief executive, Christy Coleman, told me, “where memory has taken over the actual history, and that collective memory is not historical in many cases.”
Modern scholarship on the American Civil War takes a broad view of the conflict, more interested in social, economic and political circumstances than battlefield tactics; more concerned with the perspectives of ordinary people — soldiers, civilians, Native Americans and enslaved people — than individual military leaders.
Source: Opinion | Undistorting the Civil War – The New York Times
If you’ve read Team of Rivals, you’ll be familiar with Andrew Johnson’s drunken Vice-Presidential inauguration. If not, and if you can bear the cringe-inducing details, click through for this summary.
After expressing his gratitude to his colleagues for their kindness during his tenure as vice president, Hamlin suppressed whatever bitterness he felt about having been tossed off the ticket and asked: “Is the vice-president elect now ready to subscribe the oath of office?” The combination of Hamlin’s introduction and Johnson’s speech was supposed to be a matter of minutes; instead, it turned into a 20-minute spectacle.
Source: Jared Cohen: How a drunk vice president foreshadowed segregation | Fox News
Another article discussing Walt Whitman on his bicentennial, this one from the perspective of his years in the capital. There is also a list of commemorative events happening in the city to browse for anyone who’ll be in the area.
Like many Washingtonians with creative passions, Whitman held down three government jobs to pay the bills. He was first a clerk with the army paymaster’s office, then the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
When the Secretary of the Interior realized that it was that Walt Whitman who worked for him, Whitman was unceremoniously let go. “He was a bit of a prude,” said Murray of Whitman’s boss, who didn’t approve of the emphasis on love between men that permeated Leaves of Grass.
Whitman’s friends rallied around him and soon found him a new clerking job in the Attorney General’s office.
Source: How Walt Whitman’s Decade In Washington Changed His Life — And His Poetry | WAMU
Interesting little history of the Morgan horse breed, which was apparently a favourite during the Civil War. As I mentioned before, I know very little of horses, but I know a fair bit about Rienzi, and had always understood him to be a huge steed. Perhaps his rider was just that diminutive?
Twenty-five years later, their incredible stamina during America’s Civil War kept them going for days over rough terrain, and they fought with courage during battle. Indeed, a number of Civil War generals rode Morgans, including Union General Phillip Sheridan, whose mount Rienzi (later named Winchester) turned a Union defeat into a victory after completing an amazing 11-mile ride over rugged terrain in 1864. Winchester’s remains are preserved at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
Source: Morgan horses are an American original | Horses | leadertelegram.com
I knew of the Confederados existence, but I hadn’t had the time to read much into the history of those Confederates who moved (with their slaves) to Brazil after the war. I’m horrified to find out their descendants celebrate the fact. What a strange, lingering aftereffect of the Civil War! This article was quite the eye opener.
As early as the 1860s, Brazil was actively recruiting Southern American plantation owners, part of an immigration policy aimed at attracting Europeans, European-American and other “white” migrants. According to historians Cyrus and James Dawsey, who were born and raised near Confederado communities in São Paulo, Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro II also promised cheap land to any American farmer who would come with a plow – a technology Brazil lacked.
Either way, thousands of white southerners made Brazil their new home after the Civil War. In São Paulo state, they established a somewhat closed and culturally homogeneous community that maintained its southern traditions for generations.
Source: Brazil’s long, strange love affair with the Confederacy ignites racial tension
Nice little history column in the New Hampshire Union-Leader paper. If they ever invent a time machine, going back to April, ’65, to witness the Washington illuminations is one of the first trips I’m taking.
French was ordered to illuminate all the public buildings in Washington as part of a grand patriotic celebration to be held the next day, Tuesday, April 4. He and his staff succeeded in arranging for the Capitol Building, the White House, the State Department, the War Department, the Treasury Department, the Post Office, the Patent Office, the Library of Congress, and other federal structures to be lit up. Owners of many residences, offices and stores also lit up their own buildings. A local newspaper reported the next day that “The city after nightfall was a blaze of illumination, and the gleam of fireworks, the crash of inspiring music, and the declamations of popular speakers added to the inspiring effect.”
French wrote, “After lighting up my own house and seeing the Capitol lighted, I rode up to the upper end of the City, and saw the whole display. It was indeed glorious … I have never seen such a crowd out-of-doors in my life …” He wrote with pride that he had arranged to have a huge transparent banner hung on the Library of Congress that was lit by gaslight, with enormous letters painted on it that read, “This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes,” a verse from the 118th Psalm.
Source: Looking Back with Aurore Eaton: Jubilation at the fall of Richmond | Looking Back | unionleader.com
I mentioned David Blight’s discovery of the first Memorial Day yesterday. For those who don’t know the story, here’s a NYTimes article written by the historian himself that goes into detail.
Sidenote: I first heard about this in one of Blight’s speeches at historical conferences and symposiums, many of which are available on Apple’s wonderful iTunes U. His off-the-cuff speaking style can be a bit digressive, but the content of his talks is always worth a listen.
But for the earliest and most remarkable Memorial Day, we must return to where the war began. By the spring of 1865, after a long siege and prolonged bombardment, the beautiful port city of Charleston, S.C., lay in ruin and occupied by Union troops. Among the first soldiers to enter and march up Meeting Street singing liberation songs was the 21st United States Colored Infantry; their commander accepted the city’s official surrender.
Whites had largely abandoned the city, but thousands of blacks, mostly former slaves, had remained, and they conducted a series of commemorations to declare their sense of the meaning of the war.
A deeper dive on the Slave Bible, courtesy of the Smithsonian.
“This can be seen as an attempt to appease the planter class saying, ‘Look, we’re coming here. We want to help uplift materially these Africans here but we’re not going to be teaching them anything that could incite rebellion,’” Anthony Schmidt, the Museum of the Bible’s associate curator of Bible and Religion, tells Martin.
That meant the missionaries needed a radically pared down version of the Bible. “A typical Protestant edition of the Bible contains 66 books, a Roman Catholic version has 73 books and an Eastern Orthodox translation contains 78 books,” the museum says in a statement. “By comparison, the astoundingly reduced Slave Bible contains only parts of 14 books.”
Gone was Jeremiah 22:13: “Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour’s service without wages and giveth him not for his work.” Exodus 21:16—“And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death”—was also excised. In their place, the missionaries emphasized passages that encouraged subservience, like Ephesians 6:5: “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ.”
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/heavily-abridged-slave-bible-removed-passages-might-encourage-uprisings-180970989/#bG8D9CM2JeUKBcVr.99
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This article by Smithsonian mag reached me at a very opportune time. I am a huge fan of Ken Burns’ documentary series, and had it running in the background for the umpteenth time last weekend as I worked. For some reason, after dozens of viewings, this was the first time that I really noticed the documentary’s conciliatory and controversial nature. In the 30 years since it was released, a lot more scholarship has been conducted, the Lost Cause myths have finally been seriously questioned, and society at large has started to push back against the traditional Southern narratives. I still love the series for its emotional core and excellent production values, but I agree with this author that we’re due for an updated look at the war and its aftermath.
By focusing on a type of military history wherein all sides can be seen as—in some way—heroic, “The Civil War” allows us, as white Americans, to forget about the reasons why we were fighting in the first place. It allows us to focus only on an antiseptic form of history that makes us feel good, on a narrative that emotionally relieves us of sins that should not be relieved. It allows us to convince ourselves that the dishonorable were in some way honorable; it reassures our sense of selves as inculpable white Americans; it allows us a psychological pass for the sins of our forefathers.
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-we-need-new-civil-war-documentary-180971996/#oEY3EIpx2iTag2py.99
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