if any papers ever produced a more thorough sensation than did the letters written by Major Smith during the War.”5
Major Smith eventually received a medical discharge from the army, and returned to Rome. His further letters appeared in the Atlanta Southern Confederacy, addressing news of the day. Thus after Bedford Forrest hunted down the Yankee raider Streight west of Rome in the spring of 1863, Smith wrote “Messrs. Adair & Smith” (Confederacy editors George Adair and Henly Smith) on how Romans had lionized General Forrest in the city.
Smith was in Rome when Sherman’s forces approached the city in May 1864. He and his family joined most of the citizenry in a panicked flight from the city. But of course he turned his experience into a funny column, one of my very favorites. “Bill Arp, the Roman Runagee” was first published in the Atlanta Southern Confederacy on May 29, 1864. It was reprinted in Bill Arp’s Peace Papers (1873), a collection of articles written during and after the war. In the piece Arp describes the approach of Union forces toward Rome. “Not many days ago the everlasting Yankees (may they live always when the devil gets em) made a valyunt assault upon the sitty of the hills,” Arp explained, suggesting that Rome, Ga., like its Italian counterpart, was called the “city of the seven hills.”
But alas for human hoaps! Man that is born of woman (and there is no other sort that I know of) has but few days that is not full of trubble. Altho the troops did showt, altho their brass band music swelled upon the gale, altho the turkey bumps ris as the welkin rung, altho the commandin Genrul asshoored us that Rome wer to be held at every hazerd, and that on to-morrer the big battle wer to be fout, and the fowl invaders hurled all howlin and bleedin to the shores of the Ohio, yet it transpired sumhow that on choosdy night the military evakuashun of our sitty was preemptorly ordered.6
Like most Roman “runagees,” the Smiths resettled in Atlanta. On June 3, a local paper, the transplanted Memphis Appeal, announced that “’Bill Arp’—Chas. H. Smith, Esq., better known as ‘Bill Arp,’ attorney and counselor-at-law, has opened an office in this city, with Col. J.W.H. Underwood.”
He also continued to write for the Atlanta newspapers, and readers loved it. “Volo” wrote in from Roswell, north of Atlanta, “we have received today’s Confederacy, and I assure you ‘Bill Arp’s’ letter was read with shouts and with ‘good’ from every tongue.”7
Smith was in Atlanta when the Yankees had gotten so close to the city that they were able, beginning on July 20, to fire artillery shells into Atlanta. The panicked citizenry began packing up and heading out, as Arp related, albeit (as usual) as a comic feature.
About this time the fust big shells kommensed skatterin their unfeelin kontents among the sububs of that devoted sitty. Then cum the big paniks….All sorts of peepul seemed movin in all sorts of ways, with an akselerated moshun. They ganed ground on their shadders as they leened forwerd on the run, and their legs grew longer at evry step….Kars was the all-in-all….The passenger depo was throngd with ankshus seekers of transportashun. “Wont you let these boxes go as bagidge?” “No madam, its onpossible.” Just then sumbodys family trunk as big as a niter buro was shoved in, and the poor woman got desprite.
“All I’ve got ain’t as hevvy as that,” sed she, “and I am a poor wider, and my husband was killed in the army. I’ve got five little children, and my things hav got to go.” We took up her boxes and shoved em in. Another good woman axed very anxshusly for the Makon trane. “There it is, madam,” sed I. She shuke her hed mournfully and remarked, “You are mistakin, sur, don’t you see the injine is hedded rite up the State Road towards the Yankees? I shant take any trane with the injine at that end of it. No, sur, that ain’t the Makon trane.”
By and by the shells fell as thick as Guvener Brown’s proklamashuns, causin a more speedy lokomoshun in the xsiled throng who hurrid by the dore….All day and all nite long the iron hosses were snortin to the ekoin breeze. Trane atter trane of goods and chattels moved down the rode, leavin hundreds of ankshus fases waitin their return. There was no method in this madness. All kinds of plunder was tumbuld in promiskuously. A huge parlor mirrer, sum 6 foot by 8, all bound in ilegant gold, with a barass buzzard a spreddin his wings on the top, was sot up at the end of the kar, and reflekted a butiful assortment of parler furnichure to match, sich as pots and kittles, baskets and bags, barrels and kegs, bacon and bedsteds, all piled up together.8
Smith and his family returned to Rome in December 1864, after Sherman and his army had set out for Savannah and the sea. He resumed his law practice and in 1868 was elected mayor of Rome. A decade later the Smiths moved to Cartersville, the county seat of Bartow County.
“Bill Arp” continued to write humorous pieces on the War and Reconstruction for the Atlanta Constitution, Henry W. Grady, became a close friend. These and his wartime articles were published in several collections. In Bill Arp’s Peace Papers (1873), the author muses on the republication in Richmond during 1864 of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. The book became a hit among Confederate soldiers in Virginia, who started calling it Miserables.” This prompted Bill Arp to comment, “sum frog-eatin Frenchman hav writ a book and kalled it ‘Lee’s Miserbels,’ or sum other sich name, which I spose contain the misfortunes of poor refugees in the wake of the Virginny army. Genrul Hood hav also got a few miserbels in the suberbs of his fiting ground….”
“Hood’s Miserables” has yet to catch on in the literature, but leave it to Bill Arp to give it a try. The famed writer died Aug. 24, 1903, and is buried in Cartersville’s Oak Hill Cemetery. At the funeral service, a clergyman declared that Bill Arp’s name “was known around the world.”9
Even Bill would have found that statement “a little steep.” But it was solidly grounded in the tradition of comic exaggeration that one sees so often in Southern literary humor.*
*I’ll give one of my favorite examples. In Life on the Mississippi (1883), Mark Twain comments on the mosquitoes swarming around Lake Providence, La. A local had told Twain that the insects were so huge as to be dubbed “Lake Providence colossi.” “He said that two of them could whip a dog, and that four of them could hold a man down,” Twain recorded. “He told many remarkable things about those lawless insects. Among others, said he had seen them try to vote.” “Noticing that this statement seemed to be a good deal of a strain on us, he modified it a little,” the writer continued; “said he might have been mistaken, as to that particular, but knew he had seen them around the polls ‘canvassing.’”
David B. Parker, AliasBill Arp: Charles Henry Smith and the South’s “Goodly Heritage” (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991), 3-14; Richard Michael Allen, comp., The 8th Georgia Volunteer Infantry
1. Two Union generals were
2. Another Northern general
4. Another four Civil War gen
5. One Federal general was
6. Three Union generals were
What’s In A Name?
named for this famous explorer who “discovered” the New World in 1492.
bore the name (in Latinized version) of this Italian explorer after whom “America” was named.
Federal and two Confederate generals bore the name of this first president of the United States.
erals carried the name of this famous Pennsylvanian, author of Poor Richard’s Almanack.
named for Napoleon Bonaparte, but surprisingly two were named for this king of Sweden (reigned 1611– 1632), credited with establishing his country as a world power.
named for this president of
Regiment, 1861–1865 (El Dorado Hills CA: Savas Beatie, 2018), 36.
Ford Risley, ed., Dear Courier: The Civil War Correspondence of Editor Melvin Dwinell (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2018), 319 n. 2 (“he began writing satirical essays for the Courier”); Parker, Alias Bill Arp, 52-54.
Bill Arp’s Scrap Book; Humor and Philosophy (Atlanta: Jas. P. Harrison & Co., 1884), 7-8.
James C. Austin, Bill Arp (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1969), 19; Carole E. Scott, “Writing under the nom de plume ‘Bill Arp,’ Charles H. Smith achieved fame as the Confederacy’s jester,” America’s Civil War, May 2004, 16.
Anne M. Christie, “Civil War Humor: Bill Arp,” Civil War History, vol. 2 (September 1956), 103.
Parker, Alias Bill Arp, 57-58; “Bill Arp, the Roman Runagee,” Atlanta Southern Confederacy, May 29, 1864; Bill Arp’s Peace Papers (New York: G. W. Carleton & Co., 1873), 67-68.
“Local Intelligence,” Memphis Appeal, June 3, 1864; “Volo,” “On the Right Wing,” Atlanta Southern Confederacy, June 22, 1864.
7. A Confederate and a Federal
8. One Federal general was
9. Similarly, a Union general
10. Finally, let’s hear it for clas
Answers found on page 46.
Stephen Davis, of Cumming, Ga., has long had an interest in Southern literature. At Emory University he took his Ph.D. in American Studies; his dissertation was titled “Johnny Reb Confederate Soldier’s Image in the Southern Arts.” During his time as graduate student he had published “Mark Twain, the War, and Life on the Mississippi (Southern Studies, Summer 1979) and “Turning to the Immoderate Past: Allen Tate’s (Mississippi Quarterly, Spring 1979).
the United States who served 1829–1837.
general bore the name of this famed American officer whose service bridged the War of 1812 to the start of the Civil War.
named after this third U.S. president.
bore the name of this sixth president of the United States.
sical composers. A Northern general carried the name of this Austrian composer who in his lifetime (1732-1809) wrote more than a hundred symphonies.
Quoted in Stephen Davis, What the Yankees Did to Us: Sherman’s Bombardment and Wrecking of Atlanta (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2012), 127-28. John D. Eidson, “Charles Henry Smith (‘Bill Arp’),” in Kenneth Coleman and Charles Stephen Gurr, eds., Dictionary of Georgia Biography, 2 vols. (Athens: University of Georgia, 1983), vol. 2, 895; Bill Arp’s Peace Papers, 81.
The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: Preserving the Civil War’s Legacy. By Paul Kahan. Illustrations, index, bibliography, 191 pp., 2018. Westholme Publishing, www.westholmepublishing.com. $28 cloth.
Reviewed by Wayne L. Wolf
Paul Kahan provides a well-written analysis of Ulysses S. Grant’s presidency and how political, economic and cultural forces unleashed by the Civil War defined many of his presidential decisions. Throughout his presidential tenure, Grant was consumed by Reconstruction. His vision of binding the nation together was always focused on the basis of justice and political equality for all, particularly newly freed slaves and Native Americans.
Early twentieth century historians like William Dunning charged Grant with being party to a vindictive Northern attempt to punish the South. Later historians, e.g., Kenneth Stampp and C. Vann Woodward, felt Grant did not do enough to advance black political and economic rights. Thus Grant was blamed by both historical schools for failures that ignored his need to curtail legislative dominance, deal with competing factions in the Republican Party, and manage a severe recession, international crises, westward expansion and a Northern electorate desirous of putting the war to rest. As more of Grant’s presidential papers have become available, the scandals associated with his associates have been placed in a proper perspective with his accomplishments. These included improving relations with Great Britain, promoting African-American political equality, and setting the United States on the path to becoming a world power.
Thoroughly researched, balanced in his assessment of events and objective in his analysis, Kahan would agree with Grant’s own assessment of his presidency that mistakes were made but they were “errors in judgment, not intent.” Furthermore, Grant’s military career became the prism through which he understood the demands of his era. He was concerned that politicians would squander the victories won on the battlefields and that Northern support for sweeping political and economic change was shallow and ephemeral. Within this context, Grant can be seen as a politician-in-training not yet adept at using patronage to achieve legislative victories or besting Democrats who controlled the House of Representatives. Democrats were more concerned with embarrassing Grant by their frequent investigations, ostensibly to ferret out corruption, than cooperating to achieve tangible gains in the legislative arena.
Grant’s presidential era bears an eerie resemblance to the political landscape today. With a new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives from the 2018 elections, investigations will surely be used to hobble President Trump’s agenda and the politics of personal destruction will again reign in Washington.
Paul Kahan’s book is thus not only an excellent look into how Grant shaped the presidency from a background of no political experience, but how many of his dilemmas are evident in our current political climate. This book is highly recommended for a short but insightful look at Grant’s presidency and should be required reading for presidential historians and Civil War buffs.
Wayne L. Wolf is Professor Emeritus at South Suburban College in Illinois and the author of numerous Civil War books and articles, including Heroes and Rogues of the Civil War and Soldiers, Sailors and Scoundrels of the Civil War. He is past president of the Lincoln-Davis Civil War Roundtable
River of Death: The Chickamauga Campaign. Vol. 1: The Fall of Chattanooga. By William Glenn Robertson. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index, 680 pp., 2018. University of North Carolina Press, www.uncpress.org. $45 cloth.
Reviewed by Sam Davis Elliott
Although much ground has been made up in the last twenty years or so, it is fair to say that the Western Theater remains the figurative red-headed stepchild of Civil War scholarship. Only recently have we seen, for example, scholarly treatment of the individual battles of the Atlanta Campaign, or the battle of Knoxville. Timothy Smith has produced a campaign level trilogy of the Federal invasion of Tennessee and northern Mississippi in 1862 to rival Gordon Rhea’s Overland Campaign series, and David Powell’s recent Chickamauga trilogy matches any of the myriad of intense tactical studies of the fighting at Gettysburg.
Another deficiency has now been addressed. Until now, one area where Western Theater historiography lagged behind was a view of one of its most significant campaigns from an operational standpoint, similar to Edward Coddington’s classic The Gettysburg Campaign (1968). The U.S. military defines the operational level of war as the “level of war at which campaigns and major operations are planned, conducted, and sustained to achieve strategic objectives within theaters or other operational areas.” In Vol. 1 of River of Death, William Glenn Robertson has skillfully portrayed, from an operational standpoint, the first phase of the 1863 campaign for the possession of Chattanooga.
Robertson’s eminent qualifications for this task are clearly reflected in his deep narrative. For years, in connection with his duties at the United States Army Combat Studies Institute in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Robertson led staff rides of mid-level officers (primarily majors) that studied the campaign on the ground, both inside and outside the Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park. Robertson gathered primary source materials continuously during that time, and the book blends the first-person viewpoints of soldiers and civilians in a manner that significantly enriches the text.
Introductory chapters cover each army and its commanders to the brigade level as they existed in July 1863, prior to the start of the campaign. Beginning in late August 1863, the Federal Army of the Cumberland, operating on a front of over one hundred airline miles on a diagonal line from East Tennessee through northwest Georgia to northeast Alabama, advanced on Chattanooga. The Confederate Army of Tennessee was eventually maneuvered out of the strategic little town on the Tennessee River, abandoning it to the Federals on September 9, 1863.
Robertson’s narrative outlines Federal Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans’ efforts at deception, and the thought processes and considerations that finally required Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg to withdraw (he hoped only temporarily) from Chattanooga.
The relative strengths and weaknesses of the armies and their commanders, the logistical challenges each faced, the impact of the difficulties the terrain imposed on both armies,
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and the larger strategic picture are blended into a seamless, indepth treatment of this first phase of the Chickamauga campaign. Those readers with a familiarity of the Chattanooga area will particularly appreciate Robertson’s portrayal of the vast geographical scope of the movements in the approximately two-week period covered by the book, and students of the maneuvers that immediately preceded the battle of Chickamauga will note that the book ends on the cusp of a momentum shift from the Federals to the Confederates, as the large area of Federal operations that aided the capture of Chattanooga began to expose the widely-separated Federal columns to defeat in detail.
Even if the study of the Western Theater is not the first love of the reader steeped in Antietam and Gettysburg, Robertson’s first-rate military scholarship is well worth the time it takes to read, if nothing else to lend depth to one’s understanding of the many moving parts of a Civil War army on campaign. For Western Theater enthusiasts, this book is the partial culmination of our long wait to hear from the acknowledged expert on this campaign, leaving us to eagerly anticipate Volume 2, which will cover the remainder of the Chickamauga Campaign presumably through the aftermath of the fighting on September 18-20, 1863.
Sam Elliott is a practicing attorney in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a member and former chairman of the Tennessee Historical Commission, and the editor or author of five books on the Civil War, the latest of which, John C. Brown of Tennessee: Rebel, Redeemer and Railroader was the winner of the 2017 Tennessee History Book Award.