Reviewed by Stephen Davis
J. D. Dickey, a writer who lives in the Pacific Northwest, is author of Empire of Mud, a history of Washington, D.C. in the 1800s. In Rising in Flames he offers a colorful narrative of Sherman’s Georgia and Carolina Campaigns of 1864–65.
It’s an interesting take on these important events, as I saw in Dickey’s book elements of
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history, biography and fiction. Through his publisher, I e-asked the author if he saw his work as a blend of these three. He answered, “although there are certain novelistic and biographical elements to the book, I intended Rising in Flames as a work of narrative nonfiction—a history of selected participants in Sherman’s march and people who supported them on the home front.”
Dickey thus follows Sherman’s campaigns not as a traditional historian would, but through the experiences of eight characters: Sherman, Gens. Jefferson Davis and John Logan, Capt. Charles Wills (103rd Illinois), the Rev. John Hight (chaplain of the 58th Indiana), “Mother” Mary Bickerdyke, Mary Livermore (publisher of a religious newspaper in Chicago), and John McCline, an 11-year-old escaped slave.
I asked Mr. Dickey how he chose his characters. He answered, “I chose these characters because each represented something intrinsic to what Sherman’s campaign was about….Each was fascinating in his or her own right (especially such an amazing person as Mother Bickerdyke).”
But because he chooses to view events through Northern characters, he essentially omits the Confederate side of the story.
With its focus on individuals, I found Rising to read rather as impressionistic history (although the author’s research is extensive, judging from his notes and bibliography). And as a novel will, the narrative is not sustained and linear; we jump from Fort Donelson to Chickamauga in four pages.
I read his treatment of the Atlanta Campaign with greatest interest. When Dickey writes that at Kennesaw Mountain “Logan bellowed at his men to follow him into a blizzard of gunfire and minie balls,” I suppose he can be forgiven for a bit of novelistic hyperbole (as XV Corps commander, Logan’s place was properly in the rear, as shown in Thure DeThulstrup’s famous painting of 1887).
Similarly, referring to the Northern bombardment of Atlanta, July 20–August 25, he writes, “anywhere from 100 to 150 civilians had died in the shelling, though no one could be sure since many bodies were vaporized or severed into countless pieces by the blasts.” I found this particularly odd, as Dickey cites my article in Atlanta History from back in 1999, when I estimated only twenty civilian lives lost to Sherman’s shells.
Rising in Flames follows Sherman through Georgia and the Carolinas to the end of the war in its colorful, interesting fashion. But, as you can infer from these few instances, when I want the facts on the Atlanta Campaign and the march to the sea, I’ll turn to Castel’s Decision in the West and to Trudeau’s Southern Storm.
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Recounting a state’s participation in the Civil War is a daunting challenge. This is particularly true in the case of Iowa, for the Hawkeye State contributed much to the Union war effort, and reminders of the state’s Civil War heritage can be found in many communities and on many battlefields.
Author Kenneth Lyftogt has not only accepted the challenge, but is planning to produce a three-volume study detailing Iowa’s role in the war—the first comprehensive history of the subject to appear in more than a century. This first volume begins with an examination of Iowa politics and abolitionism in the 1850s, and concludes with the 1862 Battle of Shiloh.
Lyftogt argues that although the state’s residents leaned toward the Democratic Party in the years immediately following statehood in 1846, the new Republican Party soon posed a significant challenge to Iowa Democrats, and by the late 1850s Republicans were firmly entrenched in state offices. In the 1860 election, 69 of the state’s 97 counties went for Abraham Lincoln. Abolitionist John Brown found support in the state, and Iowan Barclay Coppoc served with Brown at Harpers Ferry.
With the start of the war in 1861, the citizens of Iowa and Governor Samuel Jordan Kirkwood enthusiastically responded to President Lincoln’s call for troops. Iowans played an important role in some of the war’s early fighting, particularly the 1861 battles of Athens, Wilson’s Creek and Belmont, Missouri. In early 1862 Iowa infantry, cavalry and artillery units helped secure southwest Missouri and greatly aided fellow Iowan Samuel R. Curtis’s victory at Pea Ridge, Ark.
Iowa regiments gained glory east of the Mississippi River as well. The state’s soldiers assisted Ulysses S. Grant in the capture of Fort Donelson, Tennessee, in February 1862. On the first day of the battle of Shiloh on April 6, 1862, several Iowa units fought bravely in the legendary Hornet’s Nest and elsewhere on the field, and according to one estimate, nearly a quarter of the casualties suffered by Grant’s army that day were Iowans.
Lyftogt’s prose is a delight to read, with interesting details and a refreshing lack of jargon that would put off readers unfamiliar with Civil War history. He avoids digressions and minutiae that would slow the pace of the narrative.
Although not intended to be an exhaustive study of all aspects of the state’s history during the Civil War period, Lyftogt’s excellent overview of Iowa’s role in the first year of the war is required reading not only for Hawkeyes, but also for anyone wanting to learn more about the war in the Western and Trans-Mississippi Theaters. This reviewer looks forward to the other volumes in the series as Lyftogt follows the Iowans to Corinth, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, Atlanta and beyond.
Jeff Patrick is the museum curator at Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield in Republic, Missouri. He is currently working on a history of the 2nd Kansas Colored Infantry (83rd U.S.C.T.)
The Most Complete Political Machine Ever Known: The North’s Union Leagues in the American Civil War. By Paul Taylor. Illustrations, index, notes, bibliography, 322pp., 2018. Kent State University Press, www.kentstateuniversitypress.com. $45 hardcover.
Reviewed by Wayne L. Wolf
The North’s initial enthusiasm for crushing the secessionists waned by the summer of 1862. Repeated Federal battlefield losses fueled an antiwar sentiment at home. What was deemed necessary was an organization to shape pro-Union public opinion. This gave rise to the creation of various Union Leagues, which became the most powerful propaganda tools for the Lincoln administration to attack Copperhead sentiment and shape antiwar positions as treasonous.
Begun as a series of secret societies, by the end of 1863 onefourth of adult Republican males were members of an organized pro-Union loyalty group. From this time until Lincoln’s reelection in November 1864, the Union Leagues distributed millions of pamphlets, wrote thousands of newspaper editorials, and gave countless public speeches equating patriotism with the policies of the Lincoln administration. Loyal opposition by Democrats became treason and justified the questionable
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Constitutional silencing of antiwar protestors.
The efforts of the Union Leagues were responsible for reversing the malaise in the North, rallying reluctant enlistees and creating a voting bloc that ultimately saw Republican dominance for decades to come. They likewise successfully mitigated resentment towards the Emancipation Proclamation, the suspension of habeas corpus, and the Enrollment Act of 1863. They shaped public opinion to accept these means as justified to win the war and save the Union.
In today’s political climate, the central question of “Do the means justify the ends?” is still hotly debated. During the Civil War the Union Leagues answered this question in the affirmative. The perceived threat from the Knights of the Golden Circle, the Sons of Liberty, and the Order of American Knights energized the Union Leagues into the most effective political action committee the country has ever experienced. In the end, their victory transformed the United States from a plural to a singular noun, began the process toward African- American equality, and preserved the original Union.
Paul Taylor has produced a thoroughly researched tome that finally removes the Union Leagues from an historical footnote to an essential tool in winning the minds and hearts of Northerners to save the Union. His work is essential for an understanding of not only its role in the Civil War and Reconstruction, but how the media today can shape public opinion. It is highly recommended for historians and political scientists as well.
Dr. Wayne L. Wolf of suburban Chicago is Professor Emeritus at South Suburban College in Illinois and Past President of the Lincoln- Davis Civil War Roundtable. He is the author of numerous Civil War books and articles and is currently researching previously unpublished soldiers’ letters to increase our understanding of the common soldier.
Under the Crescent Moon with the XI Corps in the Civil War – Volume 2: From Gettysburg to Victory, 1863– 1865. By James S. Pula. Photos, maps, footnotes, appendices, bibliography, index, 369 pp., 2018. Savas Beatie, www.savasbeatie.com. $34.95 hardcover.
Reviewed by Robert L. Durham
This book is the second and final volume of James S. Pula’s history of the Union XI Corps. I reviewed Volume 1 and found it to be an exceptional, well-written book. This volume lives up to its predecessor’s terrific standards. The first book ends with the battle of Chancellorsville, where the Federal right flank was attacked and surprised by overwhelming numbers of General Stonewall Jackson’s force, and only collapsed after putting up a noble fight. The rest of the army did not see it that way, and blamed the XI Corps for the loss of the battle.
This second volume picks up where the first leaves off and provides the XI Corps’ experiences in the battle of Gettysburg. There, on the first day of the battle, they are again attacked by superior numbers (General Richard S. Ewell’s Corps). The ground they held had few natural defenses and, to top it off, one of their divisions moved forward, against orders, leaving both flanks in the air.
Pula’s description of the XI Corps defense of the area north of Gettysburg is one of the most exciting I have read. He excels at describing the battle action; one almost feels he is there. Again, after a fearsome fight, the unlucky XI Corps is forced to retreat from the field. And again, even though the I Corps was also driven off the field, blame was placed on the XI Corps for losing the battle of July 1.
On the second day, they were attacked at their post on East Cemetery Hill. They faced greater numbers again, but this time they slugged it out with the enemy until the Rebs were forced to retreat. It was a hard-fought battle and their actions won several commendations. One would think this would have redeemed them, but the balance of the army still thought they were not equals to the rest of the Army of the Potomac.
After Gettysburg, they were separated from the Army of the Potomac and sent to Chattanooga to aid in lifting the siege of that city by the Confederate Army of Tennessee. Being in another army, in another section of the country, should have changed their luck. I advise obtaining this book to find out.
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I recommend this book for anyone interested in the Civil War. The XI Corps served in both major theaters of the war and James Pula does a brilliant job of telling its story. His battle accounts are unparalleled.
Robert L. Durham of Centerville, Ohio, has been a devoted history buff for many years and is finally getting a history degree online. Bob has written articles for publication in various historical magazines and internet blogs, as well as CWN. He is retired from almost 40 years of service with the Defense Logistics Agency, where one of his roles was to install communications systems for Foreign Military Sales countries. This gave him an opportunity to travel all over the world.
Many of us are practicing scholars and writers, even if we’re “amateur” ones—strictly defined by the academicians as not earning our financial livelihood from our work (as college professors do).
Nonetheless, we all share the joy of research—gaudium investigationis, as they used to say. One of my particular pleasures is to come upon a soldier’s letter that has not made its way into the literature. The experience is made sweeter when the archival repository holding that epistle is beyond one’s beaten path.
I credit my friend Brad Butkovich, in his book The Battle of Pickett’s Mill (History Press, 2013), for putting me onto the letters held at the library of Pickett’s Mill State Historic Site. I drove out there recently, and Kelly Miller of the staff kindly provided me copy of the fourteen-page typescript of the missive written by Lt. Sebron G. Sneed, Jr. of the 6th/15th Texas Infantry (Consolidated) to his wife, “Fannie,” dated June 7, 1864. In his writing, he refers to a diary he kept during the campaign, so his recollections for Fannie strike me as particularly well informed.
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farmer and slaveowner in Austin. Born at Fayetteville, Ark., in Sept. 1836, he attended college in Galveston and, after traveling to Rome in 1858, he studied for the priesthood. Sneed returned to Texas in 1860, and when war broke out he enlisted in Co. G, 6th Texas Infantry. The regiment became part of Brig. Gen. Hiram B. Granbury’s Brigade in Pat Cleburne’s famed division.
“Seb” liked to write long letters. His to Fannie of June 7 is quite extensive. Here I draw from it that portion having to do with the battle of Pickett’s Mill, fought about 25 miles northwest of Atlanta on May 27.
In the field near Marietta, Ga.
June 7th, 1864 My darling Fannie: * * * * * * *
On this morning of the 27th two batteries of Artillery occupied the front of us where the Calvary [sic] was and our Regiment was ordered to support them. We entrenched strongly. The enemy made no demonstrations against us at this point, but seemed to be attempting something further down towards our left. We lay quiet and lazy in our works. The cannoniers at their guns and our boys occasionally popping at a blue coat as he dodge about in the wood in front. About 5 P. M. our scouts reported a large force had gone further than we extended towards our Right and that they were massing troops at that point. Our Brigade was quietly put in motion as we moved about a mile further to the Right. Here we found a weak line of dismounted calvary [sic] who were a continuation of our main battle line. Our Brigade was not more than halted before the enemy opened a hot fire which rapidly approached us and increased in intensity every moment. Each Regiment threw forward one company as skirmishers, but they had not advance one hundred yards before they found a main line of battle of enemy advancing. The Cavalry left in a hurry and our skirmishers were compelled to retire at once to their own main line. The skirmish company of our Regt. lost five wounded before they could get in. The enemy advance up under cover of the bushes and trees and poured a terrible fire of musketry on us but they shot too high, or they could not see our position. When our skirmishers got in we opened on them. They came up bravely, but our men kept such a shower of minnies in their faces that flesh and blood could not stand it. Again and again they attempted to charge us and approached their line within five paces of ours, but with shouts and volleys they were forced to retire. The balls flew thick as hail and death stalked around. Our men had no shelter except a few rails from an old fence that ran along our line. It was with difficulty they could be restrained from charging, but we were too weak to risk it, and besides we had no breast works to fall back to in case we had been forced back, nor any reserves to support us. To have charged and had been repulsed would have ruined us. The enemy shot about a foot too high, or they would have wounded or killed half the command. The battle continued thus hot for about two hours when the 8th and 9th Arkansas Regiment[s] came up to reinforce us. All the Cavalry had given way on the Right of our Brigade and our Regiment was on the Right of the Brigade—and the enemy were gradually flanking us. The Arkansas Regiments charged and drove the flanking parties back. The right of our Regiment also charged the flankers and they retreated. We were getting nearly out of ammunition, the men having fired about 50 rounds each. I scared one Yankee awfully. I had a large butcher knife in my hand that I had been using to cut a cartridge Box from one of the wounded men in order to give his ammunition to the others. I had just finished when Sam Piper came to me with a prisoner he had captured. I ran to him with the knife reased to cut his cartridge box off. The poor devil thought I intended to kill him and threw up his hands with the most pitiful face. I could not restrain a laugh at his despairing countenance. The battle continued fierce until 8 o’clock when the enemy retired. About 10 at night we made a right charge in the woods, knowing that they had not retired but a short distance.
We came upon them suddenly and captured about 300 prisoners. They flew in utter confusion. We learned from the prisoners that we had been fighting the whole of Howard’s Corps and part of another and that they had four lines of battle against us which were all repulsed. They had silently taken position and had purposely kept quiet in our front lower down in order to conceil what they were about. They thought they would find only the Cavalry which they could easily drive from its position and thus flank our main line. But our Brigade arrived at the opportune moment to thwart their cunning strategy. The next morning we went over the ground and the light of day revealed what havoc our bullets had made in their ranks.
Over four hundred lay dead in front of our works. Many of the chief officers of the army, Johnson and Hardee, and others said they never saw men piled thicker in all the battle fields they had seen. It was an awful sight. They lay crossed and thrown in every conceivable situation. Most of them were shot in the head. Could some of our women who have been insulted by the ruffian tools of the tyrant and despot, or some of the parents who have lost their idols in defense of their country, have seen the slaughter they would have thought it a retribution for the wrongs the demons have inflicted on us. It was a ghastly sight and I will not sicken you with its horrible details. Our loss was not heavy….
John R. Lundberg’s fine Granbury’s Texas Brigade (2012) informs us that Seb Sneed was wounded in the battle of Jonesboro. General Granbury mentions him in his after-action report: “First Lieut. Sebron G. Sneed, acting assistant adjutant-general, was severely wounded in the breast on the evening of the 1st instant while carrying an order in the most exposed portion of the field. His conspicuous daring won the admiration of the entire command” (OR, vol. 38, pt. 3, 745). Sebron recovered at a hospital in Barnesville, Ga., continued to serve as A.A.G. and, by the end of the war, had been promoted captain.
He returned to Austin to become one of the city’s noted educators. He founded the Austin Normal Military School, was the first treasurer of the Austin School Board, and superintendent of the Travis County Public Schools. After Fannie died in 1867, Seb remarried to Alice Bacon, who sadly passed away in 1881 at the age of thirty.
Note: next month I’ll write about a cool letter I found at the Auburn University Libraries Special Collections and Archives.
Steve Davis is the Book Review Editor for Civil War News. His article, “The ‘Criminal Blunder’ at Pickett’s Mill,” will appear in the May issue of America’s Civil War.
Did the Federal Government Pay Pensions to Ex-Confederate Soldiers?
Special to Civil War News
Even to this day, the U.S. government will provide a headstone for the grave of a Confederate soldier whose descendants meet criteria. The reasoning is that Northerners and Southerners were all American soldiers, right?
So the question follows: did the Federal Government pay pensions to former Confederate soldiers in the years after the war? The answer is no.
Historian James Marten puts it succinctly: “Southern states, of course, paid for Confederate pensions.”1
While Union veterans after the war could lobby both national and state governments for financial aid in their waning years, ex-Confederates could only turn to their states and localities, as Professor Marten asserts.2
The postwar United States Congress was so vindictive toward ex-Rebels that it enacted, in the words of the late E. Merton Coulter, “the withdrawal of pensions from all Confederates who were veterans of past wars.” Meaning, if you fought for your country in the Mexican War, but then later joined the Confederate army, you were cut off. Or, if you were the widow of a Revolutionary War soldier, but had a son who fought for the South, you also were denied further benefits.3
Southerners, of course, were outraged, especially as Federal pensions for former Yankee soldiers were being paid by every American taxpayer, including those in Dixie. Worse, it was a whopping amount of money. One writer to Confederate Veteran Magazine in 1898 declared that the annual cost of pensions to Union veterans would total “the entire salary-list of the government in Washington and throughout the country, the expenses of all departments, including the whole judicial system, the cost of the army and navy, post-office deficiencies, public buildings, fortifications and ships, rivers and harbors, the Department of Labor, and the whole expense of the White House and its salaries.”4
The sources I’ve cited so far are from my personal library (the “Brig. Gen. Clement Anselm Evans Library,” as I call it, to my wife’s perplexity). When Jack suggested that I write a column on this question, I also went online to a source you should check out, too: www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com. There I found Kathleen L. Gorman’s definitive article, “Civil War Pensions.”
Needless to say, the state struggled to meet its obligations. “In the state of Georgia alone,” Gorman continues, “in 1952 there were still 401 widows receiving aid at a cost of $361,000.”5
To be sure, a federal law enacted in1953 affirmed elibility for federal pensions for spouses and children of all Civil War veterans, including ex-Confederates. But it took nearly a century.
“Union soldiers were covered under the federal system while each former Confederate state had to create and fund its own pension system.”
Southern states could not even use Federal tariffs to fund pensions. Georgia had to resort to tobacco taxes.
“Part of the issue was that state officials continually underestimated the number of eligible pensioners and how much those numbers would change annually. It is easy to see why they had such trouble. In 1937 Georgia had 232 veterans receiving pensions, but still 1377 widows, all of whom were eligible for $30 a month even in the depths of the Depression.”
Sing Not James Marten, War: The Lives of Union & Confederate Veterans in Gilded Age America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 16.
E. Merton Coulter, The South During Reconstruction 1865– 1877 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1947), 13.
“Fraudulent Pensions,” Confederate Veteran, vol. 6, no. 1 (January 1898), 38.
Kathleen L Gorman, “Civil War Pensions.” Essential Civil War Curriculum. www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com.
Musical History
1. Even before my father’s fathers They called us rebels Burned our cornfields And left our cities leveled I can still see the eyes Of those blue bellied devils When I’m walking around tonight Through the concrete and metal These lyrics, from “Rebels,” a track on his Southern Accents album (1985), were sung by this famed American rock ‘n’ roller and leader of the band The Heartbreakers. Who?
2. As sung by “The King,” lyrics for “An American Trilogy” included lines from “Dixie” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Who is The King?
3. The majestic opening score of this famous 1939 film was written by Austrian-born Maximilian (“Max”) Steiner (1888–1971). What movie?
4. “Till Stoneman’s cavalry came and tore up the tracks again” are lines from this song, recorded by The Band and released on their second album in September 1969. Which tune?
5. In the movie Masked and Anonymous (2003), Bob Dylan and his band perform this famous tune composed by Daniel Emmett two years before the war. Which one?
6. Composed in April 1861, “Maryland, My Maryland” became the state song in 1939. Do you know the name of the Baltimorean who wrote the poem that became its lyrics?
7. “If the South Woulda Won,” this country singer declared, the days Elvis and Patsy Cline died would be national holidays. “I’d probably run for President of the Southern States,” he muses, and if he won, “I’d put that capital
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back in Alabama.” He’d ban all Chinese cars, move the Supreme Court to Texas and the national treasury to Tupelo. Who is this performer? Hint: he’s the son of a famous singer-songwriter who died in 1953 at the age of 29, primarily from alcoholism and prescription drug abuse.
8. “When you’re fighting Yankees, a redneck’s a man’s best friend” is a line from the tune “White Trash” on White Mansions, the famously little-known album released in 1978. This concept album—with songs written by an Englishman—tells the story of the Civil War through fictional Southerners. On “White Trash,” electric slide guitar is played by this world-famous guitarist who was given the nickname “Slowhand.” Who?
9. In the movie The Young Riders (1980), Clell Miller (played by Randy Quaid) objects to the saloon musicians playing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and at gunpoint “requests” a Southern tune. The musicians promptly launch into a tune based on the poem written shortly after the war by Innes Randolph (1837–87), who had served as a Confederate major. Know the song?
10. “He freed a lot of people, but it seems the good die young/you know I just looked around and he’s gone.” Thus Dion sang about the 16th president of the United States on this record, released in August 1968 after the deaths of Dr. King and Sen. Kennedy earlier that spring. Remember the name of the song?
Answers found on page 46.
Two Charlestonians at War: The Civil War Odysseys of a Lowcountry Aristocrat and a Black Abolitionist. By Barbara L. Bellows. Maps, photos, notes, index, 344 pp., 2018. Louisiana State University Press, www.lsupress.org. $38 cloth.
What can a free black abolitionist and an aristocratic slaveholder have in common? A
Five for Freedom: The African American Soldiers in John Brown’s Army. By Eugene L. Meyer. Notes, bibliography, index. 282 pp., 2018. Chicago Review Press, www.chicagoreviewpress.com. $26.99 hardcover. Reviewed by Tracy J. Revels
Everyone remembers John Brown, the fiery abolitionist whose plan to incite a slave rebellion came to a bloody end at Harpers Ferry. Brown’s trial, and his willingness to sacrifice his life for his cause, inspired some Americans just as it horrified others. Lost in this famous story shared love of their mutual hometown of Charleston, according to Barbara Bellows’ dual biography of Joseph Barquet and Thomas Pinckney. Born a mile apart in the very city in which the war began over the diverging ideologies that Barquet and Pinckney represented, their lives intersected only once and briefly in the midst of war. In 1864, Barquet, a sergeant in the 54th Massachusetts and a guard at the prison on Coffin (now Folly) Island, met an imprisoned Captain Thomas Pinckney of the 4th South Carolina Cavalry.
It is Pinckney’s telling of this single encounter in his unpublished memoirs that inspired Bellows to uncover their lives. She explores how their mutual affection for the Charleston of their childhoods bridged for a few moments the insurmountable gulf between them. Barquet, a free biracial man of European ancestry whose father came to Charleston via Santo Domingo, lived most of his adult life in the North, became an abolitionist, and eventually a sergeant in the 54th Massachusetts. Pinckney represents a way of life in many ways opposite that of
are the five African Americans who accompanied Brown in his quixotic quest. Journalist Eugene L. Meyer brings them back into the picture in Five for Freedom, a highly readable volume that considers the diverse motivations and undeniable courage of these men, restoring them to their rightful place in history.
Brown’s small but stalwart band of revolutionaries consisted of nineteen men, among them three of Brown’s sons and several veterans of the violence in “Bleeding Kansas.” Five black men committed themselves as well. They were a diverse lot. Dangerfield Newby had been freed from slavery, but was in a relationship with a slave woman, the mother of his children. Despite a lifetime of toil, he was unable to buy the freedom of his family. John Anthony Copeland and Lewis Sheridan Leary were free men of color and residents of Oberlin, Ohio, where they had participated in the dramatic rescue of a fugitive slave. Osborne Perry Anderson, another free person of color, was active in aiding runaways in Chatham, Canada. Newby, Copeland, Leary, and Anderson were all of mixed racial heritage. In contrast, Shields Green was a fugitive slave from Barquet’s. Pinckney remained a lifelong Southerner, enlisted in what became the 4th South Carolina Cavalry, and believed in a paternalistic view of the institution of slavery.
This biography provides a microhistory of the factors that developed identity and motivation, providing insight into the diversity of experience for Southerners before, during and after the Civil War. Bellows’ work builds upon two Civil Rights-era books, Who Speaks for the Negro and Who Speaks for the South, that consider the diversity of racial experiences and the importance of both races to Southern culture. Indeed, Barquet’s life illustrates the diversity of black experience in both the South and the North. The reader sees a shift in how Barquet identified himself based upon his geographical location and the racial dynamics present therein, which explains how Barquet transitioned from a slaveholding family in the South to life as an abolitionist in the North. Even as Barquet pursued his new cause, his background and education meant that others sometimes perceived him as an
Charleston, South Carolina, who had lived for a time at the home of Frederick Douglass. Each man brought a different level of education and experience to the plot, and each carried personal motivations—for rescue, for revenge, for sacrifice—to the cause. By the time the raid came to its sanguinary conclusion, two of these men were dead, two were captured (and later executed), and one escaped.
Meyer brings a journalist’s flair and sensibility to this project. The story of each participant is woven with Meyer’s personal journey of research. Readers discover not only these five men, but the worlds they lived in and the places their descendants inhabit. Meyer explores how their stories were forgotten and how they were, in essence, consumed by the long shadow of John Brown. Meyer includes another story as well, that of Haywood Shepherd, a free black man who had the great misfortune to be caught in the crossfire of the Brown raid. A baggage handler and porter at the Harpers Ferry railroad station, Shepherd most likely was killed by one of the raiders when he either raised an alarm or simply walked into their path. Like the raiders, he left behind a family outsider, including his comrades in the 54th Massachusetts.
Pinckney’s largely unsuccessful experience throughout the war, during which he never obtained the honor he sought through service but which in fact ended ingloriously, did not hinder him from becoming a stout advocate of the Lost Cause in his later years. In many ways, Pinckney’s and Barquet’s lives create a back-and-forth dialogue that brings the nation from the foundations of the Civil War through Reconstruction. It is then that the irony of Barquet’s life becomes apparent: had he chosen to remain in his home state of South Carolina, he perhaps could have pursued the political opportunities that Illinois denied him in the decades following the war.
While Pinckney committed himself to living in the new post-Civil War South in which he found himself, he eventually moved to the epicenter of the Lost Cause—Virginia—and became immersed in the literature. Bellows’ acknowledgment of this has the unfortunate effect of undermining the basis of her dual biography—that friendly meeting
Meyer takes the stories of these men beyond their deaths, into the period of remembrance and commemoration after the Civil War. The lone survivor struggled to have his voice heard, publishing an account of the raid in 1861, but dying a pauper in 1872.
Founded in Harpers Ferry after the war, Storer College, West Virginia’s first institution of higher learning for African Americans, helped to keep the legacy of the five raiders alive for almost a century, but the college’s financial collapse in the early 1960s extinguished another light of remembrance.
Ironically, Shepherd was erroneously portrayed as a of equals on Coffin Island in 1864. Given Pinckney’s devotion to the Lost Cause, his description of the meeting, while still remarkable, becomes suspect. That the book does not consider this is a looming flaw.
In addition to this flaw in argument, Bellows sometimes runs into the risk that befalls many biographers and speculates on inner thoughts or feelings with no real evidence, especially Barquet’s perception of the meeting on Coffin Island, for which there is no record. However, despite these issues, the book is overall a very enjoyable read. Readers may not come away impressed with any real significance of their meeting, but the book’s value lies in providing concrete examples of how identities and ideologies played out in the lives of two vastly different men.
Kelly Mielke resides in Charleston, S.C. Her Civil War interests reside chiefly in social, cultural and political aspects of the Confederacy, especially the use of print culture in the formation of Confederate identity. She has written reviews for several historical publications.
“faithful slave” and became a hero to “Lost Cause” partisans, who erected a monument to him at Harpers Ferry.
In an era filled with controversy over monuments and memorials, Meyer’s thoughtful and well-written book, aimed at a general audience, will help students of the war dive deeper into the story of the raid and its repercussions. By including the details of the raiders’ descendants, Meyers demonstrates that the story of John Brown’s revolutionaries is not an isolated incident, but part of the connective tissue of the American experience.
Reviewed by Sean A. Scott
The phrase “Christian America” likely engenders associations with the culture wars and religious right of the 1980s. However, as historian Grant Brodrecht demonstrates, during the Civil War and Reconstruction most evangelical Northerners championed Republican policies and affirmed their belief that the Union must be preserved at all costs in order to sustain and further their goal of a Christian nation.
Brodrecht approaches his topic through the sermons and writings of preachers. Well-known figures such as George Cheever, Gilbert Haven, Henry Boardman and George Peck dominate the account with lesser ministerial lights filling in the gaps. While it can be argued that clerical commentary reflects the predominant views of the laity as much as shepherds shape the opinions of their flocks, Brodrecht gives careful attention to gradations of Republican support among more politically conservative, moderate and radical clergy, especially regarding their stances against slavery and for racial equality. For example, Haven consistently worked to obliterate all distinctions based on caste, but during Reconstruction many evangelicals forgot about or neglected freedmen and instead turned their rhetoric and energies into unifying the nation around a white Christian culture. The book’s focus on presidential politics—at times Lincoln, Johnson and Grant all fit the bill of providential instruments chosen to carry out the evangelical agenda—similarly bends the narrative toward a history of elites.
Although evangelicals typically favored Republicans, Brodrecht’s account would benefit from acknowledging evangelical backing of Democrats. He categorizes Boardman as representative of “the moderate to conservative portion of the Republican spectrum,” but in September 1864 the Presbyterian cleric congratulated George McClellan on his nomination for president and expressed hope that God would allow him to win election. Three months later Boardman’s letter of consolation underscored that the general’s defeat was a national tragedy. Including evangelical Democrats most certainly would modify yet enrich the analysis.
The thesis that Northern evangelicals cloaked the Union in sacred garb fits nicely with Gary Gallagher’s assertion that unionism remained a constant motivation for Northerners and was never eclipsed ideologically by emancipation (The Union War, 2011). By tracing how evangelical pastors equated the Union with Christian America in their sermons, letters, and editorials, Brodrecht essentially offers theme and variation on works ranging from James Moorhead’s analysis of clergymen who saw the United States as essential to furthering millennial conditions (American Apocalypse, 1978), to my own work that highlighted how the Northern laity’s patriotism politicized the church (A Visitation of God, 2011). Nuances aside, these studies all underscore how evangelicals of the Civil War era viewed the American nation as indispensible to God’s working out his providential designs in the world.
Perhaps Brodrecht’s greatest contribution lies in enlarging the story to include Reconstruction, a period characterized by historical neglect of evangelicals. His point that evangelicals contributed to its failure rings true in the sense that many denominational leaders prioritized white unity over black inclusion. However, the American Missionary Association and various denominational freedmen’s aid societies, which are largely absent from these pages, continued to work in educating and evangelizing African Americans long after mainstream popular opinion embraced a reconciliationist rather than emancipationist memory of the war. Highlighting national politics and those preachers who sought audiences with presidents—with expectations that they would carry out evangelical policies—raises questions about how, why and when men and women on the front lines in the South gave up the fight. To be sure, evangelicals, Northerners, Southerners—practically any generalized category of people —either failed to live up to the nation’s lofty founding ideals or actively undermined African American equality as citizens. Yet without the efforts of numerous Northern evangelicals during the war and Reconstruction, freedmen and women would have been substantially worse off.
With over eighty pages of notes that highlight Brodrecht’s masterful command of the secondary literature, Our Country makes a welcome contribution to the growing literature on religion during the Civil War era.
A specialist in Civil War era religion, Sean A. Scott teaches U.S. History at the Indiana Academy in Muncie. He recently completed a research fellowship at the Methodist Archives at Drew University.
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A Civil War fortification on the James River in Virginia
JUNE 1-2, 2019
Excellent History of the Remarkable Individuals Who Built and Restored This Iconic Structure
September Mourn: The Dunker Church of Antietam Battlefield. By Alann D. Schmidt and Terry W. Barkley. Maps, photos, footnotes, appendix, index, bibliography, 156 pp., 2018. Savas Beatie, www.savasbeatie.com. $19.95 hardcover.
Reviewed by John Michael Priest
Anyone familiar with the Maryland Campaign and the battle of Antietam has seen or heard about the whitewashed brick building on the west side of the Hagerstown Pike just north of the Visitor Center. Built by pacifist Anabaptists, known as the German Baptist Brethren, it stands as a monument to peace on what became one of the United States’ bloodiest fields. September Mourn is an excellent history of the remarkable individuals who built and restored this iconic structure. But it is much more.
Besides serving as a thorough description of the Brethren and their various sects, the book succinctly describes the German influence in the settlement of western Maryland. This book filled in many of the gaps in my own knowledge of Sharpsburg and Washington County, Maryland. I discovered that individuals, whom I had been told were Brethren, were not; that the majority of the Germans in the area were Reformed or Lutheran; that the Brethren allowed other churches to conduct funerals from the church; and that the African American who returned the Bible to the church in the early 1900’s was one of the Brethen. I had never known that the Brethren were integrated at that time. They genuinely practiced their belief that all men were equal in the sight of God.
While the book has a chapter devoted to the church’s role during the battle, in its last part it details the seemingly insurmountable struggle to rebuild and preserve the building for future generations. That was a separate battle and is the part of the story I had known so very little about. Had it not been for dedicated individuals like Paige and Betty Otto, the Washington County Historical Society, dedicated National Park Service historians such as Superintendent Harry Doust, and countless others, the church foundation would still be all that remained of the building. I cannot say enough about how the hard working staff at Antietam are constantly maintaining and improving the battlefield.
I am honored to serve as a guide there. That love and devotion resonate throughout Schmidt’s and Barkley’s very important contribution to the Brethren, the Dunker Church and the battlefield.
