Success in Spite of Ourselves
Two Against Lincoln: Reverdy Johnson and Horatio Seymour, Champions of the Loyal Opposition. By William C. Harris. Photographs, notes, bibliography, index, 272 pp., 2017, University Press of Kansas, www.kansaspress.ku.edu, $36.95 hardcover.
Reviewed by Richard J. Blumberg
In an unlikely alliance, a Maryland Senator, a New York Governor and the President of the United States achieved the preservation of the Union using different paths. Award-winning Lincoln historian William C. Harris explores how these men negotiated various political agendas in a manner not unlike what current politicians face today.
Reverdy Johnson, who enjoyed a personal relationship with President Lincoln, was one of only three men who served the U.S. Senate during both the Mexican-American War and the Civil War. Horatio Seymour, Governor of New York from 1863 to 1865, emerged as a Democratic leader espousing the old Jacksonian tenets and the original purpose of the war. Both Johnson and Seymour opposed Lincoln, but not in the way most Copperheads did.
Harris’ tome has four objectives: 1) provide readers with a better understanding of those like Johnson and Seymour who opposed Lincoln and the Republicans; 2) explain the political alignments and conflicts of Union states during the Civil War; 3) outline various political issues polarizing the nation and 4) describe Johnson’s and Seymour’s unsuccessful attempt to secure an immediate Southern restoration to the Union after the Civil War. The author uses an extensive collection of manuscripts and diaries to address his four themes.
Harris shows readers that midnineteenth century politics are not that different from today’s political arena. The Emancipation Proclamation, which shifted the Northern war aim from simply preserving the Union to ending slavery, is an excellent example of a heated issue where Johnson, Seymour and President Lincoln had to make concessions and compromises in order to achieve their desired goals. In the process, each held others accountable for their actions. In spite of themselves, these men accomplished their desired political aims.
This work is a comprehensive study of politics before, during and immediately after the Civil War. The author’s structure of two separate parts treating Seymour and Johnson creates a small obstacle in determining when these leaders agreed with each other while disagreeing with Lincoln. The end notes and essay on sources tend to mask the extensive research of primary source materials used in this study. However, neither of these weaknesses is significant compared to the information and fresh insight provided in this work.
Richard J. Blumberg has been a book reviewer for Civil War News for over 15 years. His article on hospital transports appeared in our Feb. issue.
Reviewed by Tracy J. Revels
Often a person of the past leaves only scattered footprints behind, enough of a trail to follow his life’s journey but not enough to truly understand his heart. Despite the impressive research and solid prose of his biographer, independent scholar Hank Trent, the Richmond slave trader Bacon Tait remains an enigma at the center of a biography which raises more questions than it answers.
Born near Lynchburg, Va., in 1796, as a young man Tait experimented with shop-keeping and real estate speculation before concluding that slave trading was the surest route to prosperity. Thanks to good luck and a sound partnership, Tait established a thriving business, running a prominent slave jail in Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom. But financial bounty came with a curse; slave traders were despised by virtually every stratum of southern society. No “respectable” woman would consider matrimony and Tait seemed destined to suffer permanent bachelorhood.
Around 1842, Tait met and began a sexual relationship with Courtney Fountain, a free black woman. The couple would eventually have four children. Fountain was part of an extended family and many of her relatives were active as abolitionists in Massachusetts. In 1852, Tait purchased a home in Salem, where he and Fountain lived as husband and wife, though he continued to spend part of each year in Richmond, conducting his traffic in enslaved people. This double life provides the book’s greatest mystery: how did Tait feel about Fountain, and how did she regard his career, which was based on the buying and selling of people like herself? To modern sensibilities, it seems an impossible relationship.
Trent excels in re-creating the world of antebellum fortunehunters like Tait. Lynchburg and the Richmond slave trade are diligently explored. A reader curious for more details as to how the trade worked (especially in terms of the operation of slave jails or “pens”) will find this small book an excellent resource. Trent makes it easy to imagine a grimy place of petty cruelties and vast injustices, where virtually every interaction possible within the boundaries of the peculiar institution might be found, all within a city block.
Though Tait unrepentantly made his living buying and selling people, Trent argues Tait was not a participant in the culture of sexual abuse. Trent finds no evidence that Fountain, who was a free woman, was in any way coerced into a relationship with Tait. Instead, Trent argues that Tait was a lonely man, isolated by his trade, who eventually found personal happiness and indulgent
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A STRONG BROTHERHOOD inBLOOD
by Brian L.J. Keator, Sr. Historically based fictional novel, commencing with one rural family’s experiences before centrally focusing upon a tight knit pack of classmates experiencing the battles of the Civil War
together. A true “you are there” experience. fatherhood by ignoring the racial prejudices of his age.
At its best, The Secret Life of Bacon Tait reminds readers of the great complexity of social life in the antebellum South. Variation existed, and for men like Tait, compromises were possible. While we gaze backward into the nineteenth century and see stark moral drama, for most people of the age life was banal and ordinary, filled with basic concerns of earning a living and establishing a family, in whatever form possible.
Trent’s book would benefit from some illustrations. While portraits of Tait and his family may not exist, images of slave jails or sketches of abolition meetings would enhance the narrative. A map of the slave trading district in Richmond would be especially helpful. In general, however, the writing is sound and the author is fair to his subject, making him neither a hero nor villain. Lacking more documentation, Trent cannot reveal the contradictions that Tait and Fountain surely must have felt, or explain why, at the end of his life, Tait made some rather shocking choices. Perhaps one day a packet of letters or more documentation will surface to answer the many questions that are left dangling at the end of the narrative.
Wrestling with His Angel. The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, Volume II, 1849-1856. By Sidney Blumenthal. Timeline of major events, cast of major characters, photos, notes, bibliography, index, 581 pp., 2017. Simon & Schuster, www.SimonandSchuster.com. $35.
Reviewed by William D. Pederson
The author, a thoughtful political journalist who also has earned a national reputation as an eloquent writer, already has published more than a half dozen political books on Bush, Clinton, Reagan, and the Republican
Party, as well as a play. Sidney Blumenthal has now shifted his focus to Abraham Lincoln, with ambitious plans to complete a four-volume biography. This is the second in that quartet of volumes. The third volume is scheduled for release in 2018 and the final volume is scheduled for publication in 2019. Based on the first two volumes, Blumenthal is halfway through writing what promises to be the best multi-volume biography of America’s greatest president, who also is considered the greatest political leader in world history. Lincoln the frontier outsider who transformed himself into a statesman and became the touchstone of democratic leadership has found his biographer equal in Blumenthal.
The first volume, A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1849, was published last year. It is simply the most readable and interesting biography about Lincoln from his birth through his single term as a congressman. A variation on the Horatio Alger “rags-to-riches” American dream saga, Lincoln’s story holds universal reader appeal. Lincoln finds his calling as a politician, but the neophyte politician is at best pedestrian early in his career. He approaches legislative life much like a latter-day frat boy eager for peer acceptance, understandable perhaps for the unpolished up-and-comer trying to fit into polite society. Then, unexpectedly, Lincoln meets his match in Mary Todd. Blumenthal unravels Lincoln’s first forty years in a page-turner, no small achievement when writing about the man who has been the subject of more books than any other democratic leader. The author gets Lincoln “right” through his meticulous research; Mary Todd similarly intuited the potential of her backwoods suitor.
Unlike the page-turner pace of the first volume, the tempo of the second volume is slow. It begins with a complex narrative skillfully interweaving a convergence of diverse historical threads. It thrusts the reader in the thorny labyrinth of slavery—the peculiar institution threatening the great American experiment in democracy—as the obscure local lawyer-politician contemplates how to free himself from the briar patch of slavery to achieve his audacious aspiration of becoming president of the United States. Volume II at the same time opens on a low note in Lincoln’s legal career, his failure in Todd Heirs (1849). The outcome of that case, brought to recover his wife’s rightful inheritance from her father, subtly underscores the pervasiveness of the slavery issue through the dramatic changes in Kentucky, Mary Todd’s home state, under pro-slavery extremists.
This context prevails for nearly two-thirds of Volume II. As the nation’s conflict heated up, John C. Calhoun, the foremost Southern intellectual, became tangled in his illogical “concurrent majority” that proposed two simultaneous majorities. Many lesser intellects favored violence to decide the conflict. Even Lincoln’s aging traditional hero, Henry Clay, became co-opted by two master manipulators—Jefferson Davis and Stephen Douglas, who soon eclipsed Calhoun and Clay. Sorting out the politics, Blumenthal demonstrates that Davis served as Franklin Pierce’s “acting president.” Davis actively worked to create a Southern empire in Latin America while the emerging Lincoln exposed Douglas’ sophistry.
And yet, when Blumenthal chronicles Lincoln’s emergence from “the most racist state in the North,” Illinois, the readability of the final one hundred pages of Volume II rivals Volume I.
Lincoln never traveled beyond the borders of the United States, unlike Douglas, but he was a student of human nature as well as an autodidact with an insatiable appetite for learning (even subscribing to British periodicals to broaden his knowledge base). Importantly, Lincoln could—and did—think for himself. As early as October 1854, Lincoln stated that justice (and morality) should have priority in democratic government. Blumenthal shows that Lincoln understood he could be bested in the courtroom, but also that he was more than a lawyer. Lincoln had formulated a moral vision for an open society.
The second volume concludes with America’s only published poet-president poised to become its first great “legislator” during the transition from a slave culture to an open one. It may evoke for readers Percy Shelley’s notion that poets are the real legislators of the world.
Readers now eagerly await release of the next volume in Blumenthal’s engaging series.
William D. Pederson holds the American Studies Endowed Chair at Louisiana State University in Shreveport and directs the university’s International Lincoln Center. Most recently, he delivered the May 2017 lecture on “Lincoln’s Legacy Abroad” for the Abraham Lincoln Group of Washington, D.C. The first in his dozen-part series on Lincoln stamps abroad appears in Americana Philatelic News, 2017.
Joseph Brown and his Civil War Ironclads: The USS Chillicothe, Indianola and Tuscumbia.By Myron J. Smith, Jr. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index, 396 pp., 2017. McFarland, www.mcfarlandpub.com, $39.95 paper.
This fact-filled and generously illustrated, comprehensive book focuses on a self-starter individual of immigrant parents, Joseph Brown. An early Alton, Ill., steamboating entrepreneur, Brown became a builder of gunboats for Grant’s critical Western river campaigns.
This is Myron Smith’s eighth book from McFarland Publishers relating to Civil War naval operations. It offers an in-depth look at the gearing up of the Union inland fleet, how the vessels were built, the assignment of vessel commanders, as well as army and naval rivalries both in the field and in Washington. All the while, Joseph Brown was able to forge ahead despite incredible challenges and setbacks.
Other chroniclers have noted that for the Union navy the Civil War had begun in an atmosphere of disorder; it remained to be
seen if Gideon Welles could bring order out of chaos. His greatest asset (together with a willingness to assemble a board of experts to advise him) was that he had an established navy and infrastructure to make the attempt. His Southern counterpart, Stephen Mallory, basically had neither. One more thing Welles had going for him was that Congress expanded the navy for the war as part of a general bill, and authorized the appointment of an assistant secretary of war, Gustavus Vasa Fox, Welles’ detail man.
As Smith acknowledges, naval vessel historian and exceptional blueprint artist David Meagher has greatly advanced our understanding of the sizes and layout of Brown’s USS Chillicothe, Indianola and huge Tuscumbia ironclads. The book covers thoroughly the rise of Joseph Brown in political and business circles with assistance from his older brother (who had become politically connected). Chapters chart the familiar expeditions of the substantial and growing Union fleet, including conditions encountered by ship and crewmen during their long, hard slogs of service. Rather than describe examples here, readers will be better left to considerable hours of digesting this exemplary book.
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Frederick Douglass is known to most as the father of the Civil Rights Movement. His autobiographies, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881 & 1892), have given a good account of his life, but the focus of those works was Douglass himself, not the elite white women who did so much to help him promote his cause. Author Leigh Fought, Assistant Professor of History at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, N.Y., examines the women associated with Frederick Douglass during his lifetime and, by doing so, brings Douglass himself—a self-proclaimed “women’s rights man”—into clearer focus.
The first of these was Sophia Auld, wife of wealthy Baltimorean Hugh Auld, who taught twelve-year old Frederick to read. Although her husband soon
— MAKER — LEATHER WORKS
Museum Quality
interfered with these literacy lessons, Frederick continued to learn from white children in his neighborhood, stating later on in his first autobiography that “knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom.”
Author Fought continues to introduce readers to Maria Weston Chapman, foreign correspondence secretary to the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, whose letter of introduction to Irish abolitionists Richard and Hannah Webb set the stage for Douglass’s two-year sojourn in Europe in 1844-47.
Douglass attended the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, meeting Elizabeth Cady Stanton and speaking in favor of the resolution calling for women’s suffrage. By the time of the Civil War, Douglass was one of the most famous black men in the world, speaking for the rights of both women and people of color in the U.S. and Europe. He was appalled that black men could not be accepted into the Federal Army immediately, although two of his sons would soon join the 54th Massachusetts USCT, and a third son served as a recruiter.
Fought examines Douglass’s relationship with two women in particular: Julia Griffiths and Ottilie Assing. These elite white women were friends of Douglass, helping him with his newspaper publishing and other writing. It has been suggested by some that Douglass may have been intimate with either or both of these women, but Fought also clearly delineates his relationship with Anna, his wife of forty-four years, as one in which Douglass, although he was absent for years at a time, was completely faithful. From this reader’s point of view, however, staying “overnight” at someone’s house for years is intrusive, to say the least. Apparently it was the norm in
Made In The USA
the 1800s. Anna’s objections are understandable. She remained a loyal supporter of her husband’s work, even though Douglass’s relationships with both women caused recurring speculation and scandal. They had five children: Rosetta, Lewis Henry, Frederick Douglass, Jr., Charles Remond, and Annie Douglass, who died at the age of ten.
After two years of mourning Anna’s death in 1882, Douglass married Helen Pitts, a white feminist from New York. The reaction to his choice was contentious on both sides. Pitts’s family stopped speaking to her, and his children considered the marriage a repudiation of their mother. Douglass responded to the criticisms by saying that his first marriage had been to someone the color of his mother, and his second to someone the color of his father. Douglass and his new wife traveled extensively in Europe, lending their voices to such causes as Irish Home Rule.
On February 20, 1895, Douglass attended a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C. During that meeting, he was brought to the platform and received a standing ovation. Shortly after he returned home, Frederick Douglass died of a massive heart attack or stroke. He was seventy-seven. Helen dedicated the rest of her life to maintaining and planning for Cedar Hill, the Anacostia home of Douglass near Washington, D.C., to become a monument to her husband, preserving his papers and his legacy.
In Women in the World of Frederick Douglass, author Leigh Fought looks carefully at the female figures in Frederick Douglass’s life. As she brings these women into clearer focus, so does she point her lens on Douglass, and his lifetime. The rights of all people, male and female, black and white, changed dramatically from the 1840s to the end of the 19th century. Much of that change can be attributed to the efforts of Frederick Douglass and to the support of the educated, upper class, white women who shared his values. For anyone interested in women’s history, this book—well-researched and well-written—is a compelling read.
Meg Groeling, bloodnight@aol.com, is a contributor for the blog Emerging Civil War, author of The Aftermath of Battle: The Burial of the Civil War Dead, and is currently working on First Fallen: The Life & Times of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth.
Detailed history chronicles experiences of 16th New York Cavalry
With bugles blaring “Boots and Saddles,” the 16th New York Volunteer Cavalry rode off into history during the Civil War, dueling with Mosby’s Rangers and tracking down John Wilkes Booth. A new book carefully chronicles the saga of this famous regiment during its deployment to Virginia and the defenses surrounding Washington, D.C. from 1863 to 1865.
James Carson has written a thorough history of the unit in Chasing Mosby, Killing Booth: The 16th New York Volunteer Cavalry. Assiduously researched and packed with detail, the book provides an insightful look into the daily lives of the cavalrymen who answered the call to duty during this national crisis.
The 16th New York played a vital role in the Civil War, protecting the nation’s capital from Confederate attacks while allowing other units to engage the enemy deep in its own territory. Mostly, the regiment engaged Mosby’s 43rd Battalion of Virginia Cavalry as it attacked and disrupted Union activities in and around the perimeter defenses of Washington.
Carson is a retired CIA and Army officer living in Vienna, Va., home base for the 16th New York during most of its service near the capital. He includes significant descriptions of the local terrain, battle sites and former fortifications to bring an honest accounting of the scope of warfare faced by the Empire State regiment.
The author delves deep into personal diaries and correspondence to provide a critical understanding of the unit’s actions and the ordinary lives of soldiers. He details many of the people who played important roles in the regiment’s history and gives perspective to the mostly mundane daily existence of the average cavalryman.
The 16th New York usually bore the brunt of Mosby’s wrath, often coming out on the losing end of engagements. Poor leadership, due to political appointees and their lack of formal military training, hampered the unit time and time again. Still, it distinguished itself by bending and not breaking as it withstood the suffocating fog of guerrilla warfare.
Eventually, the regiment resorted to tactics that would become more familiar during the Vietnam War. Search-and-destroy missions, based on local intelligence, became standard operations for the 16th New York as it attempted to counter the hit-and-run attacks of Mosby’s Rangers. Cavalrymen would covertly slip into the countryside and try to stop their adversaries before they could get started.
The regiment became famous for the capture of Abraham Lincoln’s assassin. While a black pall enveloped the country in April 1865, the New Yorkers located Booth at Garrett’s Farm in Virginia and killed him when he refused to surrender. While participating cavalrymen were honored with financial and laudatory awards, the author points out that there likely would have been courts-martial for failure to follow orders if not for the high visibility of the crime and the vengeance demanded by a grieving nation.
In the end, Carson offers a pliable defense for the 16th New York, claiming that it gave as well as it got during its engagements with the enemy. Even though the regiment often came out on the losing end, it inflicted heavy casualties on Mosby’s Rangers and prevented the Rebels from penetrating deeply into Washington.
Despite its limitations, the 16th New York Volunteer Cavalry distinguished itself during a tumultuous time. James Carson brings honor to this illustrious regiment with an honest assessment of its courageous actions under fire.
David Kindy of Plymouth, Mass., is a lifelong student of history, and researcher of Civil War veterans from his hometown area.
Your Reviews Matter—and Help Keep Civil War Publishing Alive
We love reading about the Civil War.
We save our hard-earned money and buy books on the subject we love. Sometimes we check them out from libraries. Other times, we borrow them from friends or family members.
However, the vast majority of book readers never leave public reviews of the titles they read. Not on blogs, not on Facebook, and not on Amazon. Not in newsletters, or in magazines, or in newspapers. Most readers don’t think twice about not having done so.
It’s understandable. Most people are busy, and/or they don’t think they write well enough to leave a public review. Many folks admit the idea doesn’t often cross their mind, or don’t believe a review is really all that important, or could possibly make any difference.
They could not be more wrong.
Here are a few reasons why you should pen a review, however brief or long, however general or detailed. Why? Because it matters – in more ways than you can imagine.
First, authors need your feedback. They labor alone, often for many years, send a manuscript off to the publisher, and wait for a long while until it is published.
SavasBeatie
DISCOVERING GETTYSBURG An Unconventional Introduction to the Greatest Little Town in America and the Monumental Battle that Made it Famous
Reviews are one of the few ways they get feedback from the end user: You. Trust me, authors do not write for the money. They write for the joy of researching and writing, and to enrich your lives by providing you (hopefully) what you love. Share your honest opinion with them. Your reviews matter to them more than you know.
Second, publishers (at least those who care) need your feedback. It is important to let us know what you like, and what you don’t like. Some publishers are exceptionally engaged with the reading public and very much look forward to hearing from those who purchase and read their books. We scour the web for reviews to learn whether what we did worked – or didn’t work. If we don’t hear from you, how will we ever truly know?
How was the writing? How was the overall editing? Did you like the footnotes, or do you prefer end notes? Why? What did you think of the quality (or lack thereof) of the maps? Were they helpful? Were there enough of them? Were they placed properly? Ditto on the images. Interested publishers seek out fair and honest reviews and trust me, we pay attention.
Publishers publish for many of
Independent,scholarly,andabitoldfashioned...
the same reasons authors write. Speaking for myself, it certainly isn’t for the money, but the love of the game. The concept of adding enjoyment to the lives of others and enriching them in a unique way is truly satisfying; so is leaving something worthwhile for posterity. Your reviews matter.
Third, other potential readers rely upon and need your honest opinion. Marketing blurbs and jacket copy are important sales tools, but interested readers are more influenced by your opinion. Think about it. Don’t you like to read what others think about a new book in which you have an interest?
If Book X is released and the first several reviews are very negative – no maps, terrible writing, no index, etc., aren’t you glad you didn’t shell out thirty bucks for it? Sure you are. On the flip side, if early reviews are glowing, doesn’t it help you make an informed buying decision? Your reviews matter.
Fourth, most book readers don’t take into consideration that booksellers and wholesalers follow reviews carefully. Here is a simple example outside the Civil War that makes my point. The fascinating memoir Steel Boat, Iron Hearts: A U-boat Crewman’s Life
Aboard U-505, by Hans Goebeler (with John Vanzo) has been very successful, but not because of anything the authors have done (Hans is deceased, and John does not do events), but because some of our promotions triggered a wave of reviews.
As the number of positive reviews climbed, more booksellers and wholesalers stocked it, more libraries picked it up, and more readers discovered this little gem. Foreign rights agents sought us out, as did a major audio rights company. Thousands of readers around the world would never have heard of this gem except for your reviews; they climbed in number from 19 to... 498. Your reviews matter.
Fifth, Amazon, the uncomfortable elephant in the room today, uses reviews and page hits to determine which books are popular, how many to stock, and how to match them with other similar interests. Many people check Amazon first to see how a book has been reviewed. I know many of you are nodding your head, right? How many of us have glanced at a star rating and thought, “Only a two-star average with 10 reviews? I’ll pass.” Or, “Wow, this has 22 reviews and a 4.5-star rating average. I will get a copy.” Your reviews matter.
SIXDAYSINSEPTEMBER A NovelofLee’s ArmyinMaryland,1862
M err y C
I can hear some of you shouting, “But Ted, I am not a good writer!” This is something I hear often. Here is a secret: It doesn’t matter.
Just write what you liked, or didn’t like, about a book. Post it on Amazon, Facebook, or maybe in a series of tweets. It can be as simple as, “I liked this book because the subject is interesting, it was easy to read, there were lots of good maps, the footnotes were informative, and I learned a lot.” If you feel comfortable, go in-depth and write several paragraphs.
Reviews help keep authors writing, publishers publishing, and readers reading. Your participation with reviews is critically important and likely much more so than you realized.
Help shape YOUR reading future. Your collective opinion matters.