Month: December 2010 Page 2 of 4

On December 6, 2010

In Fighting for Liberty, Grave Crisis (1801-61)

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).

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

1860 (Arguing for Justice) Hutchinson Family Singers

On December 11, 2010

In Arguing for Justice, Grave Crisis (1801-61)

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

In Arguing for Justice, Grave Crisis (1801-61)

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.

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

On December 16, 2010

In Grave Crisis (1801-61)

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 (Arguing for Justice) Kate Stone

In Arguing for Justice, Terrible War (1861-65)

Kate Stone (Louisiana State University)

Narrative
Kate Stone was twenty-years-old when Fort Sumter fell to Confederate forces. She was thrilled. Stone was an ardent southern nationalist from Louisiana who lived on a large plantation (Brokenburn) with many slaves and an extended family, including at least two brother who would die in the Confederate army. Within a month after Sumter, Stone began a diary the she kept for seven years. The material was full of biting insights and wise comments. Stone lived through Grant’s Vicksburg Campaign in 1863 and feared the arrival of black troops into the region. She and her family fled to Texas in 1863 and lived there until the end of the war. The young plantation mistress was suitably unimpressed by Texans and frontier life. “There must be something in the air of Texas fatal to beauty,” she wrote. Stone sardonic tone appeared frequently in her journal and sometimes appeared especially hardened. Following Lincoln’s assassination, she remarked on her satisfaction at his fate. Stone returned to Brokenburn –which had been devastated by the war—helped rebuild the place, married in 1869 and lived until 1907. When her diary was published in 1955, it was to wide acclaim, hailed by critics such as Edmund Wilson and by crowds –an estimated 10,000 folks in Louisiana including her 77-year-old daughter (who lived until 1972) and has since become regarded as a Civil War classic, though it is not as well known and familiar as Mary Chesnut’s diary.

Sources
John Q. Anderson edited Kate Stone’s diary and published it as Brokenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone, 1861-1868 in 1955. House Divided has several of Stone’s diary entries online, including July 4, 1861, June 30, 1862, March 22, 1863, September 5, 1864, and April 28, 1865. In addition, Anderson discusses one of the soldiers who appeared in Stone’s diary in “Joseph Carson, Louisiana Confederate Soldier,” Louisiana History (1960). Other scholars have also examined Stone’s diary, including Drew Gilpin Faust’s “Altars of Sacrifice: Confederate Women and the Narratives of War,” Journal of American History (1990) and Clara Juncker’s “Confederate Languagescapes: Kate Stone’s Brokenburn,” Southern Quarterly (1996). Other primary sources, such as photocopies of letters about Coleman Stone’s death and papers on the Carson family that appear in Stone’s diary, are in the John Q. Anderson Papers at Louisiana State University. The collection also has the correspondence of Stone’s daughter. Amy discussed a number of different topics, such as Civil Rights issues, James Meredith’s admission to the University of Mississippi, and President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. In addition, the collection has a map from March 1955 that indicates the location of Brokenburn Plantation. This finding aid has more information on this collection.

Places to Visit
No structures or sites related to Kate Stone exist. Stone was born in X, Mississippi, but she grew up on a plantation in Louisiana. While her family moved to Texas during the later half of the Civil War, they returned to Louisiana after Confederates surrendered in 1865.

Images
The John Q. Anderson Papers at Louisiana State University has images of the Stone family and the Carson family. (See this finding aid for more details). In addition, a photograph of a float in the Kate Stone Day Parade held on March 17, 1955 is online at the LSU Digital Collections.

1861 (Fighting for Liberty) Ivey W. Duggan

On December 15, 2010

Duggan - (History of the Baptist Denomination in Georgia)

Sources
A profile of Duggan is in Samuel Boykin’s History of the Baptist Denomination in Georgia (2001). In addition, Dave Dameron discusses the unit that Duggan served with in Benning’s Brigade: A History and Roster of the Fifteenth Georgia By (1997).

Artifacts
The Georgia Archives has the 15th Georgia Infantry Regiment flag.

Images
An image is in Samuel Boykin’s History of the Baptist Denomination in Georgia (2001).

1861 (Fighting for Liberty) James Smith Colwell

James Colwell (Cumberland County Historical Society)

Narrative
James Smith Colwell, who worked as a lawyer in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was one of the men who answered President Abraham Lincoln’s call for 75,000 volunteers after Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. Colwell joined the Carlisle Fencibles, a local volunteer company under the command of Robert Henderson, as a first lieutenant. Six weeks later the Fencibles left Carlisle for Camp Wayne in West Chester, Pennsylvania, where they received training and were designated Company A of the 7th Regiment, Pennsylvania Reserve Corps. His wife, Ann, had not been happy with that decision. “You left me without talking about it,” as Ann reminded him. While James admitted that “[he] err[ed] frequently,” he observed that “it [was] nearly always an error of the judgment & not of the heart.” Yet in this case he argued that it was impossible to get out of the army. “I do not see how I could get out of the service without bring[ing] disgrace and dishonour on myself & my little family,” as Colwell explained. Colwell had in mind his four children – two sons and two daughters. Colwell’s oldest daughter, Nannie, was about six years old in December 1861 when she announced in her “first letter” that she “[could] read” and “[sent him] a big kiss.” Colwell was able to return to Carlisle on furlough, but on September 17, 1862 he died during the Battle of Antietam. Local newspapers published obituaries, including the Carlisle (PA) American, which noted that “[Colwell’s] high moral character and exemplary life had made him a bright example in our midst.” When Civil War veterans in Carlisle established a local chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic in February 1881, they decided to call it the Captain Colwell Post.

Sources
The best source on James Colwell is David G. Colwell’s The Bitter Fruits: The Civil War Comes to a Small Town in Pennsylvania (1998). In addition, the Cumberland County Historical Society in Carlisle, Pennsylvania has Colwell’s correspondence.

Places to Visit
The Colwell family’s house was located at 145 South Pitt Street in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. While today the house is a private residence, you can visit the Cumberland County Historical Society, which is located several blocks away at 21 North Pitt Street. You can also visit Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Maryland.

Artifacts
The Cumberland County Historical Society has material related to Colwell and his regiment, the Carlisle Fencibles.

Images
The slideshow below includes images from David Colwell’s The Bitter Fruits: The Civil War Comes to a Small Town in Pennsylvania (1998).

1861 SECESSION

On December 16, 2010

In Grave Crisis (1801-61)

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.

1862 (Arguing for Justice) Cornelia Peake McDonald

In Arguing for Justice, Terrible War (1861-65)

Narrative
Winchester, Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley was arguably the most contested town of the Civil War. Depending on how you count, the community changed hands over seventy times during four years. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson became a hero at Winchester at a major battle in 1862. The town was also part of the Gettysburg Campaign in 1863. And in the fall of 1864, Union General Philip Sheridan won a bloody but brutally effective victory there that contributed to Lincoln’s reelection effort. Winchester offers a dramatic window into the sacrifices of southern families during the war. Secretary of State William Seward visited in 1862 during a period of Union occupation and reportedly said: “”the men are all in the army, & the women are the devils.” Several women kept diaries, wrote remarkable letters or crafted post-war reminiscences. One of the best hybrid collections (part-diary/ part-recollection) comes from Cornelia Peake McDonald who wrote with great talent and behaved with outrageous defiance. In 1863, McDonald sent a sarcastic Valentine’s Day card to Union General Robert H. Milroy during the period when he was heading the occupation. He never discovered the culprit. She later fled Winchester following the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg and became widowed in 1864 when her husband (serving in the army) died from disease. She lived until 1909 but never remarried.

Life & Family
You can find information on McDonald’s family history on page 10 of of this PDF document. A list of McDonald’s children appears on page 10 and 11 of that PDF document. You can also find it in Gwin’s book (See the Appendix on page 273).

Sources
A key primary source is the diary edited by Minrose C. Gwin – A Woman’s Civil War: A Diary, with Reminiscences of the War, from March 1862 (2003). McDonald discussed the challenges of raising children during the war in a number of diary entries. After her son was arrested on the suspicion of throwing a snowball at a Union officer, McDonald noted in her diary on March 17, 1863 that “I have to be constantly on the watch for fear of my boys doing something to provoke the persecution of the Yankees.” Other selected entries in House Divided include September 26, 1862 ; October 13, 1862 ; December 26, 1862 ; January 20, 1863 ; May 15, 1863. Earlier versions of the diary are available. In 1875 McDonald put together an edition titled A Diary with Reminiscences of the War, From March 1862. In addition, Cornelia’s son Hunter McDonald published an edition in 1935 – A Diary with Reminiscences of the War and Refugee Life in the Shenandoah Valley, 1860- 1865. (You can find more information about the 1935 edition here). McDonald’s also created a scrapbook, which included both text and artwork. “McDonald’s handwriting is flawless and always legible,” as Gwin describes. Gwin notes in footnote 2 on page 275 that the McDonald family of Nashville, Tennessee has the scrapbook in their private collection. In addition, the Jasper County Public Library in Rensselaer, Indiana has the original parody Valentine drawing that McDonald sent to Robert H. Milroy in February 1863.

Other secondary sources related to McDonald’s diary include Margaretta Barton Colt’s Defend the Valley: A Shenandoah Family in the Civil War (1994), Michael Mahon’s Winchester Divided: The Civil War Diaries of Julia Chase & Laura Lee (2002), Sheila R. Phipps’ Genteel Rebel: The Life of Mary Greenhow Lee (2004), Jonathan Noyalas’ My Will Is Absolute Law: A Biography of Union General Robert H. Milroy (2006), Richard R. Duncan’s Beleaguered Winchester: A Virginia Community at War, 1861–1865 (2007). The online Encyclopedia Virginia also has an entry on “Winchester During the Civil War”.

Places to Visit
In Winchester, Virginia you can visit the Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society and the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley. McDonald is buried in Hollywood Cemetery, which is located in Richmond, Virginia.

Images
Minrose Gwin included three photographs in the 2003 edition of McDonald’s diary: Cornelia McDonald & her children in 1870, another family picture from in 1883, and McDonald’s house in 1914. McDonald’s profile on House Divided also has other images, such as McDonald’s home in Winchester circa 1900, William N. McDonald, and Angus W. McDonald.

1863 (Compromising for Union) Francis Lieber

On December 10, 2010

In Compromising for Union, Terrible War (1861-65)

Francis Lieber (House Divided)

Sources
You can find collections of Lieber’s papers at the Henry E. Huntington Library, Johns Hopkins University, the University of South Carolina, and at the Library of Congress. Other important primary sources include Lieber’s Miscellaneous Writings: Reminiscences, Addresses, and Essays (1881) and Like a Sponge Thrown into Water: Francis Lieber’s European Travel Journal of 1844-1845 (2002). Lieber also wrote several books and articles, such as A Popular Essay on Subjects of Penal Law (1838) and Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field (1863). Important secondary sources include Frank Freidel’s Francis Lieber, Nineteenth-Century Liberal (1948), Bernard Edward Brown’s American Conservatives: The Political thought of Francis Lieber and John W. Burgess (1951), Elihu Root’s, “Francis Lieber and General Orders no. 100,” American Journal of International Law 7 (1913): 453-469, Kent Blaser’s “Lieber’s Code and the Law of War,” Civil War History 30 (1984): 88-89, Michael O’Brien’s “‘A Sort of Cosmopolitan Dog’: Francis Lieber in the South,” Southern Review 25 (1989): 308-322, Burrus M. Carnahan’s, “Lincoln, Lieber and the Laws of War: The Origins and Limits of the Principle of Military Necessity,” American Journal of International Law 92 (1998): 213-231, and Hartmut Keil’s “Francis Lieber’s Attitudes on Race, Slavery, and Abolition,” Journal of American Ethnic History 28 (2008): 13-33.

Places to Visit
Lieber College is located on the University of South Carolina’s campus in Columbia. The building was constructed in 1837 and Lieber lived in the house until 1856. Today it houses the University’s Undergraduate Admissions Office.

Images
While an image of Lieber is available on his House Divided profile, the New York Public Library Digital Gallery also has several other photographs.

1863 (Fighting for Liberty) First Arkansas Regiment

On December 15, 2010

Black soldiers recruited in Arkansas in early 1863 (later 46th USCT) who found themselves surrounded by Confederate forces in June 1863 as part of a counter-offensive aimed at disrupting the Union occupation of eastern Louisiana (during Grant’s Vicksburg campaign). Seized as prisoners of war, more than two dozen still listed as POWs in 1865. There are powerful comments about this engagement from Grant, local diarist Kate Stone, and various officers. Lindley Miller, the first white colonel in charge of the regiment (and son of a US senator from NJ), also appears to have been the author of a well known marching song inspired by “John Brown’s Body,” sometimes attributed to Sojourner Truth, and recorded in the twentieth century by activists such as Pete Seeger. Includes fascinating lyrics such as:

“They will have to pay us wages, the wages of their sin,
They will have to bow their foreheads to their colored kith and kin,
They will have to give us house-room, or the roof shall tumble in!
As we go marching on. “

Sources Summary
See David Walls’ “Marching Song of the First Arkansas Colored Regiment: A Contested Attribution” (2007). Also available as a PDF. Also see John Q. Anderson, ed., Brokenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone, 1861-1868 (orig. 1955; new edition, 1995), , Gregory J. W. Urwin, ed., Black Flag over Dixie: Racial Atrocities and Reprisals in the Civil War (2005), 132-52, and the “First Regiment Arkansas Volunteers of African Descent” profile online at the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture.

Artifacts Summary
Henry Ford Museum: muster roll (Apr. 30-June 30, 1865) for the 1st Arkansas REgiment (African Descent), which became Company E of the 46th Regiment, U.S. Colored Infantry. Commanding officer was Col. Julian E. Bryant (nephew of William Cullen Bryant). A number of the soldiers (26) are still noted as having been taken prisoner of war back in 1863, when they were guarding contraband at the Mounds or what is described here as “Mound Plantation” (near Goodrich’s Landing in East Carroll Parish in eastern Louisiana).
Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Song sheet from “Song of the First of Arkansas” in the collections of the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments. Important See David Walls article for complete details.
New York Public Library: Holds letters from Lindley Miller describing authorship of song lyrics. See Macculloch-Miller Family Papers.

1863 (Fighting for Liberty) Frederick Stowe

On December 9, 2010

Frederick Stowe (House Divided)

Sources
You can learn more about Stowe’s regiment in Alfred Seelye Rowe and Charles Nutt’s History of the First Regiment Heavy Artillery Massachusetts Volunteers (1917). Another important source is Edwin Bruce Kirkham’s “Andover, Gettysburg and Beyond: The Military Career Of Frederick William Stowe,” Essex Institute Historical Collections 109, no. 1 (1973): 87-93. In addition, Frederick’s mother, Harriet Beecher Stowe, wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) and A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1853).

Places to Visit
You can visit the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum and Visitor Center in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Images
An image of Frederick Stowe is available on his House Divided profile.

The slideshow below includes images related to the Battle of Gettysburg.

1863 (Fighting for Liberty) Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman (House Divided)

Sources
Important sources include Sarah H. Bradford’s Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman (1869) and Harriet, the Moses of Her People (1886). In addition, the National Archives has a 1898 affidavit related to her claim for a pension (Page 1 ; Page 2). One of the best studies on Tubman’s life is Kate Clifford Larson’s Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero (2004). Check Larson’s website for excerpts, a timeline, and other resources. Other secondary sources include Dorothy Sterling’s Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman (1954), Catherine Clinton’s Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom (2004), and Milton Sernett’s Harriet Tubman: Myth, Memory, and History (2007). Also see the “Harriet Tubman: Online Resources” from the Library of Congress.

Places to Visit
Historical markers related to Tubman are located in a number of places, including one in Bucktown, Maryland and another in Bristol, Pennsylvania. Bucktown is in Dorchester County, Maryland, the place where Tubman was born. You can also visit the Harriet Tubman Home Auburn, New York. Important museums include the Tubman Museum of African American History in Macon, Georgia and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. In addition, this essay from the National Park Service provides an overview of places associated with Tubman.

Artifacts
The National Museum of African American History and Culture has the lace shawl (circa 1897) that Queen Victoria gave Harriet Tubman.

Images
The Harriet Tubman collection at the National Museum of African American History and Culture has photographs of Tubman’s funeral in 1913.

1863 (Fighting for Liberty) Julius Leinbach

On December 15, 2010