A Traveling Exhibition Coming in 2013

Category: Grave Crisis (1801-61)

1857 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

The 1857 image of fugitive slaves was originally published in William Still’s The Underground Railroad (1872). This section of Still’s book describes the incident depicted in that image. As for the 1862 image, it was appeared in Harper’s Weekly Magazine on November 8.

                              

                              

October 28, 1857 – “Twenty-eight fugitives Escaping from the Eastern Shore of Maryland” – See image record on House Divided.

November 1862 – Captured African-Americans Being Driven South, artist’s impression – See image record on House Divided.

1858 (Arguing for Justice) Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (House Divided)

Life & Family
Abraham Lincoln was a southerner who led the North during the Civil War. Born on February 12, 1809, the same day as scientist Charles Darwin, Lincoln began his life on a farm in Kentucky before moving as a young child to Indiana and eventually to Illinois. He settled in Springfield, married Mary Todd, and raised four boys (two of whom died before he did). Lincoln was six-feet, four inches tall and weighed about 180 pounds. He was well respected as a politician and attorney and well-liked for his story-telling abilities. Lincoln served one term in Congress where he gained notice for opposing the Mexican War but otherwise had no experience in Washington before becoming president. During the 1850s, Lincoln helped organize the Republican Party in Illinois and distinguished himself as an anti-slavery orator, especially during the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858. Two years later, Lincoln and Stephen Douglas faced each other again, this time as part of the dramatic four-way presidential contest of 1860. Lincoln won an electoral majority and seven Deep South states seceded. President Lincoln refused to bend and war erupted at Fort Sumter in April 1861. As a wartime leader, Lincoln has been widely revered for his actions to save the nation, free the slaves and for his astounding ability to communicate the values of democratic self-government in simple, elegant phrases. He won reelection in 1864 but was shot and killed by actor John Wilkes Booth in mid-April 1865, just over one month into his second term.

In December 1859 Lincoln wrote a short autobiographical sketch and sent it to Jesse W. Fell. You can listen to this letter through the audio player below:

Sources
Important primary sources include the Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress, the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln at the University of Michigan, and the Papers of Abraham Lincoln. Key secondary sources on the Lincoln Douglas Debates include David Zarefsky’s Lincoln, Douglas, and Slavery: In the Crucible of Public Debate (1990) and Allen C. Guelzo’s Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates That Defined America (2008). Other important sources on Lincoln include David Herbert Donald’s Lincoln (1996) and Michael Burlingame’s Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2008).

Places to Visit
Springfield, Illinois has  a number of historic sites on Lincoln, such as the National Park Service’s Lincoln home, the Lincoln-Herndon Law Offices, the Lincoln Tomb, and the Lincoln Depot. You can also see the Old State House where Lincoln gave his famous House Divided speech in 1858. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum is also located in Springfield. If you are in Washington DC, you can visit Ford’s Theatre and the Lincoln Memorial. While in Gettysburg you can tour the David Wills’ house and see the bedroom where Lincoln stayed the night before he delivered the Gettysburg Address in November 1863.  In addition, the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park is located in Hodgenville, Kentucky.

Artifacts
The Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana at the Library of Congress has a number of items, including Lincoln’s life mask from February 1865 and the contents of Lincoln’s pockets on the evening of his assassinations. In addition, this collection contains material related to Lincoln’s opponent in 1858, such as Stephen Douglas’ life mask from 1857. The Library of Congress also has the bible that Lincoln used during his inauguration on March 4, 1861. President Barack Obama used the same bible in January 2009 when he took the oath of office. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History also has a number of items, such as Lincoln’s Top Hat and a model of his patent (“Improvement for Buoying Vessels Over Shoals“). In addition, the Lincoln Collection at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum contains over 250 artifacts, including Lincoln’s beaver-fur stovepipe hat, Tad Lincoln’s toy cannon, the skirt to Mary Lincoln’s wedding dress, and Mary’s blood-stained fan from Ford’s Theatre.

Images

1859 (Arguing for Justice) William Howard Day

William Howard Day (House Divided)

Sources
A short profile of Day starts on page 366 of G. F. Richings’ Evidences of Progress among Colored People (1902). In November 1865 Day delivered a speech at Harrisburg’s Grand Review, which was organized to honor African Americans who served in the Civil War. You can read more about this event in an excerpt from Ceremonies at the Reception of Welcome to the Colored Soldiers of Pennsylvania (1865).

Places to Visit
You can find a historical marker about the November 1865 USCT Grand Review that Day helped organize in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. A historical marker about Day is also located in Steelton, Pennsylvania at the intersection of Lincoln Street and Carlisle Street. While the William Howard Day Cemetery is also located in Steelton, Day was buried at Lincoln Cemetery in Penbrook, Pennsylvania.

Images
A photograph is available from Day’s profile on House Divided.

1859 (Fighting for Liberty) Dangerfield Newby

Dangerfield Newby (House Divided)

Sources
Important primary sources on Brown’s Harpers Ferry raid include James Redpath’s The Public Life of Capt. John Brown (1860), Franklin B. Sanborn’s The Life and Letters of John Brown, Liberator of Kansas, and Martyr of Virginia (1885), and Richard J. Hinton’s John Brown and His Men; With Some Account of the Roads Traveled to Reach Harper’s Ferry (1894). Osborne Anderson, who participated in Brown’s raid but managed to escape, also published his account  in 1861: A Voice from Harper’s Ferry: A Narrative of Events at Harper’s Ferry. Important secondary sources include Benjamin Quarles’ Allies for Freedom; Blacks and John Brown (1974), Paul Finkelman’s His Soul Goes Marching On: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid (1995), David S. Reynolds’ John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights (2005), and Jonathan Earle’s John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry: A Brief History with Documents (2008).

Places to Visit
You can visit Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia and see John Brown’s fort and the historic town. In addition, the Kennedy Farmhouse is only about 30 minutes from Harpers Ferry. The farmhouse, which became a National Historic Landmark in 1973, is the place where Brown’s raiders launched their attack on Harpers Ferry.

Artifacts
A number of institutions have one of Brown’s pikes in their collection, including the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the Jefferson County Historical Society in West Virginia, and the National Museum of American History. In addition, the National Museum of American History has “John Brown’s Sharps Rifle” and another rifle seized during the attack on Harpers Ferry.

Images
The slideshow below includes images related to Brown’s attack on Harpers Ferry in October 1859.

1859 (Fighting for Liberty) Osborne Perry Anderson

Osborne Anderson (House Divided)

Sources
Anderson published his account of Brown’s raid in 1861 as  A Voice from Harper’s Ferry: A Narrative of Events at Harper’s Ferry. Other important primary sources include James Redpath’s The Public Life of Capt. John Brown (1860), Franklin B. Sanborn’s The Life and Letters of John Brown, Liberator of Kansas, and Martyr of Virginia (1885), and Richard J. Hinton’s John Brown and His Men; With Some Account of the Roads Traveled to Reach Harper’s Ferry (1894). Important secondary sources include Benjamin Quarles’ Allies for Freedom; Blacks and John Brown (1974), Paul Finkelman’s His Soul Goes Marching On: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid (1995), David S. Reynolds’ John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights (2005), and Jonathan Earle’s John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry: A Brief History with Documents (2008).

Places to Visit
You can visit Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia and see John Brown’s fort and the historic town. In addition, the Kennedy Farmhouse is only about 30 minutes from Harpers Ferry. The farmhouse, which became a National Historic Landmark in 1973, is the place where Brown’s raiders launched their attack on Harpers Ferry.

Artifacts
A number of institutions have one of Brown’s pikes in their collection, including the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the Jefferson County Historical Society in West Virginia, and the National Museum of American History. In addition, the National Museum of American History has “John Brown’s Sharps Rifle” and another rifle seized during the attack on Harpers Ferry.

Images
The slideshow below includes images related to Brown’s attack on Harpers Ferry in October 1859.

1860 (Arguing for Justice) Hutchinson Family Singers

Hutchinson Family Singers, 1845 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Sources
Important primary sources include the collection at the Wadleigh Memorial Public Library in Milford, New Hampshire and Dale Cockrell’s  Excelsior: Journals of the Hutchinson Family Singers, 1842-1846 (1989). In addition, Joshua Hutchinson published A Brief Narrative of the Hutchinson Family in 1874 and John Hutchinson recalled his experiences in The Story of the Hutchinsons in 1896  (Vol. 1 ; Vol. 2). While Joshua’s work offers “intimate vignettes” of the singers, historian Scott E. Gac cautions that John Hutchinson’s “memoir… is a less accurate but entertaining reconstruction of the group.” In addition, a collection at the Wadleigh Memorial Public Library in Milford, New Hampshire has sheet music and newspaper clippings about the Hutchinsons. Important secondary sources include Philip D. Jordan’s Singin’ Yankees (1946), Carol Brink’s Harps in the Wind: The Story of the Singing Hutchinsons (1947), Caroline Moseley’s “The Hutchinson Family: The Function of their Song in Ante-Bellum America,” Journal of American Culture 1, no. 4 (1978): 713-23, Scott Gac’s Singing for Freedom: The Hutchinson Family Singers and the Nineteenth-Century Culture of Reform (2007), and Matthew Warner Osborn’s “Singing for Freedom: The Hutchinson Family Singers and the Nineteenth-Century Culture of Antebellum Reform,” Journal of the Early Republic 28 (2008): 488-491.

Places to Visit
Apparently no structures or sites related to the Hutchinson Family Singers exist. Jesse and Mary Hutchinson were from Milford, New Hampshire. Thirteen of their children formed the original Hutchinson Family Singers.

Images
A 1845 photograph of the Hutchinson Family Singers is available from the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Other images are in House Divided and in the collection at the Wadleigh Memorial Public Library in Milford, New Hampshire.

1860 (Arguing for Justice) Edmund Ruffin

Edmund Ruffin (House Divided)

Life & Family
In late 1860 South Carolina Governor Gist William Henry Gist referred to the “John Brown Pike” in his message to the state legislature. As the Charleston (SC) Mercury reported, Ruffin gave this pike to South Carolina to display in January 1860 and included a note which read in part: “Sample of the favors designed for us by our NORTHERN BRETHREN.” When John Brown attacked Harpers Ferry in October 1859, he brought pikes with him as a way to arm the slaves who rebelled.

Sources
Key primary sources include Ruffin’s The Political Economy of Slavery (1857), William K. Scarborough’s three volume Diary of Edmund Ruffin (1972-89), and David F. Allmendinger’s Incidents of My Life: Edmund Ruffin’s Autobiographical Essays (1990). Ruffin also wrote a number of other books and pamphlets, including Agricultural, Geological, and Descriptive Sketches of Lower North Carolina, and the Similar Adjacent Lands (1861). In addition, the Bland-Ruffin Papers at the Library of Virginia has some of Ruffin’s correspondence from the Civil War. These letters “document Ruffin’s unflagging support of the Confederacy,” as the finding aid notes. The Library of Virginia also has the diary that Ruffin used between 1841-1851. In addition, the Southern Historical Collection at UNC has Edmund Ruffin Jr’s Journal (1851-1862, 1866-1873). Other studies on Ruffin’s life include Betty L. Mitchell’s Edmund Ruffin: A Biography (1981) and David F. Allmendinger’s Ruffin: Family and Reform in the Old South (1990). Several historians have focused their research on Ruffin’s role in the secession crisis: Avery O. Craven, Edmund Ruffin, Southerner: A Study in Secession (1932), Eric H. Walther’s The Fire-Eaters (1992), and Kenneth L. Smith’s “Edmund Ruffin and the Raid on Harper’s Ferry.” Virginia Cavalcade (1972). In addition, the online Encyclopedia Virgina has an entry on Ruffin. For more information about John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry in October 1859, see Paul Finkelman’s His Soul Goes Marching On: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid (1995) and David S. Reynolds’ John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights (2005).

Places to Visit
You can visit Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia and see John Brown’s fort and the historic town. In addition, the Kennedy Farmhouse is only about 30 minutes from Harpers Ferry. The farmhouse, which became a National Historic Landmark in 1973, is the place where Brown’s raiders launched their attack on Harpers Ferry. In addition, a historical marker notes the location in Charles Town, West Virginia where Brown was executed in December 1859. Ruffin’s plantation (Marlbourne) was located in Hanover County, Virginia and it became a National Historic Landmark in 1964. While Ruffin was buried at his estate, a historical marker for his grave is located near Mechanicsville in Virginia.

Artifacts
A number of institutions have one of Brown’s pikes in their collection, including the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the Jefferson County Historical Society in West Virginia, and the National Museum of American History. In addition, the National Museum of American History has “John Brown’s Sharps Rifle” and another rifle seized during the attack on Harpers Ferry.

Images
Ruffin watched John Brown’s execution on December 2, 1859 in Charlestown, Virginia with cadets from the Virginia Military Institute.  A drawing of the VMI Cadet Guard at Charlestown is online at the Encyclopedia Virgina. The image is originally from the Virginia Military Institute Archives.

1860 ELECTION

Campaign Banner, 1860

The slideshow below includes political cartoons about the Election of 1860. You can learn more at the Election of 1860 major topic page on House Divided.

1861 SECESSION

Union is Dissolved

See the slideshow below that includes images related to the Secession Crisis. Learn more about Fort Sumter and the Secession Crisis at House Divided.

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