The Past: Through A Contemporary Glass Darkly

 

When I was down in Springfield last week, go here to read about my family’s annual pilgrimage to the Lincoln sites this year, I purchased several books at The Prairie Archives.  That bookstore is a treasure trove for those interested in the Civil War and/or Lincoln.  Two of the books were written by James G. Randall, the first volume of his four volume study of Lincoln as President and his Constitutional Problems under Lincoln.  Randall, who died in 1953, was a history professor at my alma mater, the University of Illinois, for three decades.  The foremost Lincoln scholar of his day, his body of work on Lincoln demonstrates how historians are influenced by the contemporary history they live through, and how the march of history after they are dead can make their interpretations obsolete, at least until history shifts again.

The formative event in Randall’s life was World War I.  He viewed the immense carnage as a huge waste, a war fought over issues that were unimportant compared to the huge loss of life involved.  World War II confirmed his belief in the futility of war, as he interpreted that conflict as being brought on by fanatics, this time Fascists, who caused millions of deaths in a completely unnecessary conflict.

In regard to the Civil War, Randall saw it too as an unneccessary conflict brought on by fanatics, fire eating secessionists in the South and, especially, abolitionists in the North.  Randall viewed the abolitionists as earning most of the blame for bringing on the War, turning political differences over slavery to be settled by compromise, into a crusade that could only be resolved by rivers of blood.

Randall summed up his argument in a paper entitled The Blundering Generation delivered to the Mississippi Valley Historical Society on May 2, 1940 at a conference in Omaha, Nebraska.  Randall’s thesis was that the War largely came about over a controversy over slavery that was merely a phantom.  There was never a question that the Western territories were going to be free territories due to the greater numbers heading for the West from the North, and the unwillingness of slave holders in the South to risk their slaves in the West on land not suitable for large scale plantation crops such as cotton and where they would be without the legal protections afforded by slave states to slaves as a species of property.

Randall’s argument found considerable support during his lifetime, but now is rarely presented as a viewpoint held by contemporary historians.  Why?

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Eternal Father

Something for the weekend.  An Eternal Father variant for submariners.   I never fail to be greatly moved by this hymn.

Lincoln and Summer

 

 

On Wednesday of this week my family and I made our annual pilgrimage down to Springfield to visit the Lincoln Museum and go to the Lincoln Tomb to say prayers for the repose of the souls of Lincoln and his family.  A few observations:

1.  Weather:  Illinois has been experiencing one of the coolest Julys on record.  Yesterday the high was 80 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about 15 degrees below what we often experience at this time of year.  Very pleasant weather for walking about downtown Springfield.

2. Officiousness-My family and I renewed our membership in the Lincoln Museum Association for $70.00.  That is pricier than if we had to pay for tickets but I like to encourage the Museum with funds, especially as I view the enjoyment of the kids who come there to see the Lincoln exhibits.  Right after we did that a guard stopped us as we were entering the main part of the museum and asked to examine my wife’s purse.  He saw that she had gum and mints and told us she would have to put the gum and mints in a locker before we could enter since no food and drink could be brought in.  We have been coming to the museum since 2006, after it opened in 2005, and this had never happened to us before.  It was obvious to me that the young man was taking a reasonable rule and making it absurd.  We complied, although the lawyer part of me wanted to make an issue of it.  However, I did not want to get the young guard into trouble, which I assume will happen swiftly enough if this is how he is treating all female patrons.   I decided to let it be by someone else’s hand and I was not going to mar our day with a confrontation.

3.  Decisions-The museum was wonderful as always.  The standout for me, as usual, was Lincoln standing behind his desk, looking at the draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, as shadows behind him gave him conflicting advice about whether to emancipate the slaves.  Great decisions are always easy unless you are the one making them.

July 24, 1864: Second Battle of Kernstown

After the ending of his raid on Washington, General Jubal Early returned to the Shenandoah Valley.  With Early no longer a threat to Washington, the Union VI and XIX corps were returned to Grant’s army besieging Petersburg.  This left only the three division Army of West Virginia under Major General George Crook to contest the Shenandoah with Early.

Crook planned to attack Early at Kernstown on July 24.  Crook began getting messages from his division commanders indicating a reluctance to attack Early as the Confederates seemed to have a numerical superiority.  Their caution was justified in that Early had about 13,000 troops to the Union 10,000.

A Union attack began at 1:00 PM and was quickly routed by Major General John Breckinridge.  This began a panic in the Union force that routed as the Confederates chased them back into West Virginia.  Union casualties were 1200 to 600 Confederate.  With this victory, Early once again raided the north, burning Chambersburg, Pennsylvania on July 30, and go here to read about it.  Grant now realized that Early was a serious threat, and turned the VI and XIX corps back around towards the Shenandoah.  He placed Major General Philip Sheridan in overall command with the mission to stamp out Confederate resistance in the Shenandoah for good.

Here is Crook’s report on the battle:

Emily Hoffman and Her Yankee General

 

The Civil War was filled with endless personal tragedies and one of them played out in the aftermath of the death of General James Birdseye McPherson at the Battle of Atlanta.  McPherson was engaged to marry Emily Hoffman of Baltimore.  Having gotten leave for the first time in three years, he had been on his way to Baltimore to marry her, when Sherman had called him back to take command of the Army of the Tennessee in the drive on Atlanta.  Sherman wrote to Miss Hoffman to explain the necessity of this:

Head-Quarters
Military Division of the Mississippi
Acworth, Ga.
June 9, 1864
My Dear Young Lady,
I hardly feel that I should apologize for intrusion, for I can claim an old acquaintance with your Brother and Sister in California, and feel almost that I know you through them, and others of your honored family. It has come to my knowledge that you are affianced to another close friend and associate of mine Maj General McPherson, and I fear that weighing mighty matters of State but lightly in the Realm of Love, you feel that he gives too much of his time to his Country and too little to you.

His rise in his profession has been rapid, steady and well earned. Not a link unbroken. Not a thing omitted. Each step in his progress however has imposed on him fresh duties that as a man and a soldier, and still more as a Patriot, he could not avoid.

I did hope as he returned from Meridian, when his Corps the 17th was entitled to go home on furlough, that he too could steal a month to obey the promptings of his heart, to hasten to Baltimore and I so instructed, but by the changes incident to General Grant’s elevation, McPherson succeeded to the Command of a separate Army and Department, and could not leave.

There is no rest for us in this war till you and all can look about you and feel there is Reason and Safety in the Land. God purifies the atmosphere with tempests and storms which fall alike upon the just and unjust, and in like manner he appeases the jarring elements of political discord by wars and famine. Heretofore as a nation we have escaped his wrath, but now with the vehemence of anhundred years accumulation we are in the storm, and would you have us shrink?

But I will not discuss so plain a point with one who bears the honored name of Hoffman, rather tell you of him whose every action I know fills your waking and sleeping thoughts, him so young but so prominent, whose cause is among the gallant and brave, who fight not for oppression and wrong but that the Government bequeathed to us by your ancestors shall not perish in ignominy and insult: but which shall survive in honor and glory, with a power to protect the weak and shelter the helpless from the terrible disasters of a fratricidal war.

I know McPherson well, as a young man, handsome and noble soldier, activated by motives as pure as those of Washington, and I know that in making my testimony to his high and noble character, I will not offend the Girl he loves.

Be patient and I know that when the happy day comes for him to stand by your side as one Being identical in heart and human existence you will regard him with a high respect and honor that will convert simple love into something sublime and beautiful.

Yours with respect
W. T. Sherman

Her father was a rich Baltimore merchant, strongly pro-Confederate in his sympathies, as was his mother who organized sewing bees to produce garments for Confederate soldiers.  A son was fighting in the Army of Northern Virginia.  The Hoffman family strongly disapproved of Emily’s engagement with a Union general.

 

Emily learned of the death of McPherson on July 23.  Stricken with unbearable grief she immediately went to her room and spent the next year there in seclusion.  Sherman wrote to her a second time.

July 22, 1864: Battle of Atlanta

After the battle of Peachtree Creek Hood ordered his army to withdraw to Atlanta, hoping that an opportunity would present itself to destroy a portion of the Union army as Sherman advanced on Atlanta.

 

 

 

 

While Stewart’s corps held the fortifications north of Atlanta, Hood planned to attack McPhersons Army of the Tennessee which was approaching from the east.  Cheatham’ corps would attack from the eastern fortifications of Atlanta, while Hardee’s corps would attack from the south, with Wheeler’s cavalry launching assaults on the supply lines of the Army of the Tennessee.

Hardee’s corps took much longer to get into position for the attack than Hood anticipated, and McPherson reinforced his left to meet this anticipated attack.  The attack of Hardee when it went in caused the Union line to waver and begin to retreat before it was repulsed.  It was during this attack that McPherson was slain.  Major General John “Blackjack” Logan, the most able of the Union political generals, took temporary command of the Union army and successfully led it during the remainder of the battle.

Cheatham’s corps attacked from the Atlanta entrenchments.  Here most of the fighting centered on Baldy Hill, with that conflict going on to nightfall.  Two miles to the north Cheatham’s corps made a breakthrough of the Union lines, that was only repulsed after much hard fighting, spearheaded by Logan’s corps supported by a heavy Union artillery bombardment.

At the end of the day, Union casualties were 3,000 to Confederate casualties of 5,000.  Hood was unable to repulse the Union forces and the battle of Atlanta now became the siege of Atlanta.

 

 

The essential tragedy of the Civil War is that it was “a war without an enemy” in which Americans were fighting each other.  This sad fact is epitomized by this tribute penned by Hood in regard to his classmate and roommate James Birdseye McPherson:

I will record the death of my classmate and boyhood friend, General James B. McPherson, the announcement of which caused me sincere sorrow. Since we had graduated in 1853, and had each been ordered off on duty in different directions, it has not been our fortune to meet. Neither the years nor the difference of sentiment that had led us to range ourselves on opposite sides in the war had lessened my friendship; indeed the attachment formed in early youth was strengthened by my admiration and gratitude for his conduct toward our people in the vicinity of Vicksburg. His considerate and kind treatment of them stood in bright contrast to the course pursued by many Federal officers.

 

 

Here is Sherman’s report of the battle:

Are You Middle Aged or Ancient?

(I originally posted this at The American Catholic, and I thought the humor mavens of Almost Chosen People might enjoy it.)

Courtesy of Father Z.  I don’t know, I think my kids would say I am ancient.  Let’s take that test:

1.  Are your veteran benefits paid in sesterces for your valiant service in the Social War?

2.  Is your reaction when people say, “We can’t be fired, slaves have to be sold!”, well, duh!

3.  Do you view the tribunes as a radical destabilizing force in the Republic?

4.  Do you think those illegal aliens from Magna Graecia should be shipped back south, especially if they won’t learn Latin?

5.  Do you think the Dionysian mystery cult is leading the younger generation astray?

What Wondrous Love

Something for the weekend.  A moving rendition of the hymn What Wondrous Love Is This by Bobby Horton, who has waged a one man crusade to bring Civil War era music to modern audiences.  The lyrics were first published in 1811 during the Second Great Awakening, a huge religious revival that swept  the nation.  The hymn was written either by that most prolific song writer Anonymous or by Alexander Means, the historical record is unclear.  The tune comes from that hit of 1701,The Ballad of Captain Kidd.

Few hymns are better than this one in powerfully, and simply, conveying the eternal truth of Christianity:  God, the great I AM, became one of us, walked and taught among us, and died for us.

Here is another rendition I have always liked, combining the hymn with another work of art that wordlessly conveys the core of Christianity, the Pieta:

The State of Jefferson

The proponents of dividing California up into six states have enough signatures for the proposal to be on the ballot in 2016.  I think this is an idea we will see more of in many states.  Urban areas and non urban areas have been growing increasingly antithetical to each other in state after state, politically and culturally.  The problems of dividing states, which would have to be approved by Congress as well as state legislatures, are huge but I think the movement for this will grow, and not just on one side of the political ledger.  As for myself, I would love to see Illinois divide into two states:  The Land of Lincoln and whatever Chicago wants to call itself.  If such a measure is ever approved in one state, I think this movement will rapidly sweep across the country.  We will see.

Proposals to divide up states and create new states is not a new idea in American history, the state of West Virginia being the prime example.  If the Union had been able to take control of east Tennessee more rapidly than it did, I suspect that East Tennessee might have become a state.

Just prior to Pearl Harbor there was a move afoot to carve a new state out of the rural regions of north California and south Oregon.  The new state to be called Jefferson, the same name as one of the proposed new states to be made from the division of California.   In October 1941 Mayor Gilbert Gable of Port Orford, Oregon, said that the Oregon counties of Curry, Josephine, Jackson, and Klamath should join with the California counties of Del Norte, Siskiyou, and Modoc to form a new state.  This was started as a publicity stunt to draw attention to the terrible roads in the area, the people of the region feeling ignored by the legislatures of both California and Oregon.  The movement quickly gathered steam however and came suddenly to national attention when on November 27, 1941 a group of young men with hunting rifles national  stopped traffic on U.S. Route 99 south of Yreka, the county seat of Siskiyou County, and distributed copies of a Proclamation of Independence, stating that the state of Jefferson was in “patriotic rebellion against the States of California and Oregon” and would continue to “secede every Thursday until further notice.”

The Better Angels

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Abraham Lincoln, conclusion of his First Inaugural Address

A video clip of a movie, The Better Angels, coming out in the fall of this year.  The film deals with the boyhood of Lincoln and centers on the death of his mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln.  She died when Lincoln was nine and Lincoln helped his father make her coffin.  Throughout his life Lincoln was surrounded by death:  his younger brother Thomas who lived only three days, his mother, his beloved sister Sarah who died at age 20 giving birth to a still born son, his son Eddie who died in 1850 age three, his son Willie who died in 1862, age 11 and the grim death toll of the Civil War, larger than that of all other American wars combined until Vietnam.  These deaths helped increase the melancholy that always lurked below the surface for Lincoln and which he fought off with his humorous story telling.

Lincoln’s religious beliefs during his life were a subject of controversy and so they have remained after his death.  However, all the deaths that he personally witnessed convinced him that God had His own purposes that were unknown to mortals.  Lincoln gave this belief immortal form in his Second Inaugural:

 Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.