Our Noble Experiment - Democracy

John Adams wrote, in 1814, "Democracy never lasts long, it soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a Democracy yet, that didn't commit suicide." The next 2 months will tell us if he was right, or wrong.

Now the Democrats will start the Court challenges. As would the Reublicans had the outcome been reversed. Remember, they said they would accept the outcome. Of course, now they won't. Here is something to think about before our country descends into Civil Unrest.

The total death toll of the American Civil War is generally accepted to be around 620,000 soldiers and approximately another 130,000 civilians, for a total of 850,000 in the 48 months from April 1861 through April of 1865. Then it took a century more to recover from that conflict, and arguably that recovery is still going on today.

Comparatively the total deaths incurred during the 45 months of the Second World War, from December 7th, 1941 to the first week of September of 1945 was far less,  approximately 113,842 in both Europe and the Pacific combined. And when the war was over we recovered almost immediately,  into a post war boom both socially and economically.

The lesson to be learned is quite simple; we lose more when we fight amongst ourselves than we do when we are fighting others. Think about that.

Surrender at Appomattox - The Beginning of the End

This is one of the most popular posts from 2010. It has garnered about 9,000 "hits" and always nets me several thank you notes each year, presumably from students doing research into the Civil War. 

Until I moved to North Carolina I had a rather one sided picture of the Civil War. The reason it is still a contentious issue today is due to the fact that the war was never officially ended by a treaty between the two sides. There was simply a proclamation by President Johnson in 1866 that the war was over. And that lack of a treaty is at the very root of any discord which remains from the Civil War today.

I cannot think back to a time when I was unaware of the Civil War. The fact that the wounds of the war were still raw in half of our country was surely a contributing factor to this. I was about 7 when all the Centennial Observances began in full swing. To make matters even more confusing, in school we were taught only part of the story concerning the end of the Civil War.

Today marks the 149th Anniversary of General Robert E. Lee's surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia. It was there that Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia, which effectively ended the South's ability to wage war. But there never was a formal surrender by the Confederate Government. Neither treaty nor truce was ever called.

When I first moved down South I was very confused at the attitude that the War Between the States had never ended. So, I did as I usually do; I headed to the library. I was very surprised at all that I did not know.

General Grant, writing his memoirs with the aid of Mark Twain, aka Samuel Clemens, recalled the following conversation just prior to the signing of Lee's surrender;

"Lee soon mounted his horse, seeing who it was, and met me. We had there between the lines, sitting on horseback, a very pleasant conversation of over half an hour, in the course of which Lee said to me that the South was a big country and that we might have to march over it three or four times before the war entirely ended, but that we would now be able to do it as they could no longer resist us. He expressed it as his earnest hope, however, that we would not be called upon to cause more loss and sacrifice of life; but he could not foretell the result. I then suggested to General Lee that there was not a man in the Confederacy whose influence with the soldiery and the whole people was as great as his, and that if he would now advise the surrender of all armies I had no doubt his advice would be followed with alacrity. But Lee said that he could not do that “without consulting the President first. I knew there was no use to urge him to do anything against his ideas of what was right."

President Jefferson Davis refused to surrender the Confederacy, instead seeking to consolidate his forces west of the Mississippi. He was of the hope that they could establish the Confederacy in Texas. This was a misguided hope at best. Davis was captured in May enroute to Texas. He was then imprisoned under unduly harsh conditions and emerged a physically broken man. But he never signed the Loyalty Oath and never formally surrendered his government.

As a matter of fact, the last action of the Civil War took place up around the Arctic Circle on November 6th, 1865. The C.S.S. Shenandoah, under the Command of James Waddell and out of communication with land, continued conducting raids and seized 4 Yankee merchant vessels before being informed that the War was over. In June of 1865 the Shenandoah had captured two Yankee ships, and while aboard the Susan Abigail, Commander Waddell saw a San Francisco newspaper that stated the war was over. But it was not until they heard the news from a British ship that they gave up the cause.

At that point the Captain of the U.S.S. Donegal took the formal parole of the Shenandoah, and Commander Waddell elected to sail to England rather than the U.S. to avoid his crew being tried as raiders instead of being released as former soldiers. Some other Confederate ships had surrendered only after their crews were reclassified as "artillerymen", thus avoiding criminal trials for the crime of piracy.

The last ship of the Confederacy was then sailed over 9,000 miles to Liverpool, by Commander Waddell and presented to a Joint House of Parliament in 1866. He then simply walked away.

When the "Carpetbaggers" arrived to plunder the ruined Southern States, in direct opposition to Lincoln's plan of a gentle reunion, the stage was set for the violence and opposition to what the South called "the Army of Occupation." When that "Army" finally left in the 1870's, a backlash of "Jim Crow" laws became the norm and the Southern States entered upon a century of violence and segregation.

The fact that the War Between the States was never properly adjudicated, and the subsequent lack of any formal Instrument of Surrender being tendered, has left a hollowness in the "peace" that is often cited as an end to hostilities. The Union did, however, have the last word. In May of 1866, President Andrew Johnson simply proclaimed the War to be at an end.

Sadly, vestiges of that war remain unresolved to this very day. And the chief culprit of this "hollowness" in our national unity is, in my opinion, directly attributable to the lack of a formal ending of the hostilities.

"Disunion" - Edited by Ted Widmer (2013)

Even for a Civil War buff like me, this book holds unknown treasures. From the files of the New York Times blog of the same name; which chronicles the Civil War; Mr. Widmer has drawn upon the 106 most poignant articles; each of which illustrates a point about the conduct of the War Between the States, as well as the men who waged it.

The subjects represented here form an eclectic view of our nation’s most trying conflict. From Lincoln’s furtive trip through Baltimore to Washington for his first Inauguration; and on through the first years of the War Between the States, the editors have given us a comprehensive view of not only our own internal struggle, but also a look at what was happening in the rest of the world at the time, and how it affected us all. We were not alone in our struggles.

In Russia the serfs had just been freed, even as we were first going to war over the same issue. The differences in geography and how that affected the Russian serf are explored in a thorough manner, with the author taking only a few pages to make his point.

In Europe the Germans were struggling over the question of whether or not to be Germany or the Austrian Empire. Otto Von Bismarck was in charge and opted for a smaller Germany. The question of what would win out in the end would not be fully decided for 3 more wars and almost 100 years.

Mexico was mired with debt to the European powers; a debt which they decided not to pay. This decision brought the fury of the French down upon them. Maximilian was the designated President but he only lasted until 1869.

A letter to President Lincoln from the ruler of San Marino; a small country nestled in the northeastern corner of Italy which is the world’s oldest Republic, having been founded about 1300; is an interesting event all in itself. It took Lincoln 2 months to prepare the reply which he deemed proper enough to send.

The role which the railroads played in the Union victory is also explored, making the reader fully aware of the new power to get supplies to the front in an expeditious manner. What used to take months now took mere weeks, and sometimes just days, to accomplish. This “progress” made the killing faster and more numerous. And, for those who love the story, the Great Locomotive Chase is not ignored in this all encompassing book.

Here at home the authors tackle such subjects as the hundreds of women who disguised themselves as men to fight in combat. Children were also involved in the conflict, one of the most famous being Johnny Clem, who at the age of 9 years, held the dubious distinction of being the youngest person in the war to have killed a man. Clem was a Union drummer boy, a veteran of quite a few campaigns before he shot the Confederate officer who demanded his drum in surrender.

Abraham Lincoln is at the center of almost every article presented here, giving us more insight as to who he really was as a person versus the legend we have come to know. His relationship with a man named Mr. Johnson, who did some work for the President in Illinois and then accompanied him to Washington, is a wonderful example of Lincoln’s attitudes concerning race.

Mr. Johnson was an African-American man. He cut Lincoln’s hair, and even nursed him to health in late 1863 when the President was stricken with a mild case of smallpox while travelling to Gettysburg for his famous speech. As a result of ministering to the President’s needs, Mr. Johnson himself came down with the pox and passed away as a result. Lincoln had him buried in Arlington National Cemetery. The President felt that, while it could not be proven that Mr. Johnson died as a result of exposure to his illness, it was a strong possibility. He took this burden literally, which is why he paid for Mr. Johnson’s funeral.

Rose Greenhow, a woman who lived around the corner from the White House, was a spy for the Confederacy. She was successful in passing the plans for the Battle of Bull Run to the enemy. Her late husband’s military contacts and her own social circle, allowed her to hear bits and pieces of information which she passed through the lines via messenger.

When she was discovered, Allan Pinkerton, who was in service to the US Government at the time, had her placed under house arrest. She then used her window shades to pass messages to other agents strolling by. At that point Pinkerton had the windows boarded up and Mrs. Greenhow removed to a military prison. She was so much trouble there; where she was the only woman; that she was exiled down South for the remainder of the war.

One of my favorite articles in this book was written by Mr. Widmer and concerns Sarah Bush, Lincoln's stepmother. He saw her for the last time in 1861 on his way to Washington. He gave her a black dress on the occasion, not knowing that she would wind up wearing that dress for his funeral. This is the woman who introduced him to books, and in doing so changed the course of history. This is also one of the finest pieces of writing to grace the pages of an already wonderful book.

The authors also explore the many famous names we have come to associate with the Civil War and give us a little more information about them. For instance, we meet Grant not as a General, but as a failed soldier working in a dry goods store. His star was yet to rise.

Filled with descriptions of everything imaginable about the War Between the States, this book will complement any literary collection about the Civil War. With so many subjects presented in its pages, the book will have the effect of making the reader look even further than ever before in an effort to understand the war which nearly drove a stake in the heart of our young nation, and in so many ways still divides us today.

Fort Sumter - The Outbreak of Civil War

The following was first posted here in 2010. I hope that no-one is bothered by my occasional “re-posts”, but there are new readers who may not have read this before, and of course, I get to have the day “off”.

On April 12, 1861 Confederate batteries opened fire on Fort Sumter, S.C. triggering the American Civil War. The attack came after months of talks and 2 days of demands by the Confederates that the fort be surrendered. When Major Anderson refused, the Rebels attacked. The photograph shown here was taken on April 14th; one day after Major Anderson was forced to evacuate the Garrison.

The battle was not a ferocious one by any standards. It was a bombardment of over 3,000 enemy cannon balls, which severely damaged the fort. There were no actual casualties inflicted by the enemy. One Union artilleryman was killed and two soldiers were injured when their cannon misfired. This was small change in comparison to the carnage that was yet to come.

Although this engagement is often cited as the beginning of hostilities for the Civil War, that is not quite the truth. In December of 1860 South Carolina became the first state to leave the Union. Within 6 days Major Anderson took his men from the badly situated Fort Moultrie and secretly removed them to Fort Sumter. He did so of his own volition and with no authorization from Washington.

By January the Government of South Carolina, as well as Brigadier General Beauregard, were both calling for the fort to be turned over to the Confederacy. On January 9th, 1861 when the Union attempted to resupply Fort Sumter via a shipment aboard the merchant vessel Star of the West, Southern troops opened fire, resulting in the ship turning about without resupplying the fort.

In Washington, President Lincoln was faced with the first serious test of his Presidency and the challenge to his campaign promise that he would keep the Union whole. Fort Sumter had supplies which would hold it until April 15th. By April 6th, with no diplomatic relief in sight, Lincoln dispatched a fleet of ships to resupply and defend the fort. Under the Command of Gustavas Fox, the Cutter Harriet Lane, with the Sloops of War Pawnee and Powhatan, and Steamers Pocahontas and Baltic along with 3 tugs, set sail for Charleston. They would arrive on April 11th at the sand bar which comprises the natural abutment around which Fort Sumter was built.

"Double V" by Rawn James, Jr. (2013)

In this exciting new book by Rawn James, Jr., the author examines the history of the African-American fighting man.  Remember, these were guys who had to fight just to get into the fight! And then when they returned home, they were treated as second class citizens at best; and horrific resentment for their patriotism at the worst.

Author Rawn James, Jr. goes to extraordinary lengths in his recounting not only the exploits of these brave men, but also examines what they hoped to gain by fighting for freedom overseas, while the very freedoms for which they were fighting, were denied to them here at home.

Beginning with the American Revolution and the death of Crispus Attucks in the Boston Massacre, and on through the end of World War Two, when President Truman finally desegregated the Armed Forces, African Americans have contributed greatly to the building of a nation.

From the slaves who built the Capitol city in Washington, D.C., and even on the battlefield, African Americans were a large part of the American Revolution. Officially there were no real “black” troops during the War for Independence, but the hard work of re-supplying the troops, while still working the farms for the sustenance of all, was a very necessary contribution to the Victory at Yorktown in 1781.

General Washington was one of the first to exclude African Americans from the ranks of the Armed Forces. In 1775 the Continental Congress, in an overwhelming decision, voted to bar any blacks; free or slave; from taking up arms in defense of the colonies. The reasoning was simple; since Virginia was the most prosperous colony, with many large plantations supplying the needs of the Continental Army; it was imperative that the slaves remain slaves. The fear of well trained and armed black men was not one that appealed to our founding fathers, who were slave holders.  Any resistance from the northern colonies on the issue of slavery could have scuttled the Revolution before it ever got off the ground.

As a matter of fact, the preceding policy caused John Murray, Governor of Virginia, to proclaim that any African Americans who took up arms against their masters to fight for the Crown would be freed. This action caused the colonies to reverse their course on the ban for African Americans to fight for freedom, and many a Hessian soldier stated that there was hardly a regiment in which African Americans did not take the field, often in the place of their masters.

By the time the War of 1812 rolled around, the Governor of Louisiana would make a direct appeal to President Madison for freed persons of color to be allowed to take up arms in order to oppose the invasion by the British at New Orleans. The permission was granted and hundreds of African American soldiers fought, and died, valiantly under General Jackson at New Orleans. In addition, fully 15%; or more; of all American seamen at the time were black. There was a reason for this.

Just as Crispus Attucks had escaped slavery by becoming a seaman, many other escaped slaves chose this same path to self-emancipation. The reasoning was that if you were aboard a ship at sea, the chances of being caught were slim to none. And; unless you sailed out of a Southern port; you were essentially free wherever you went. It was a form of self-exile, which took many African American men away from slavery, but at the same time denied them a family with a real home ashore.

One of the thornier bumps on the road to integrating the Armed Forces was the dilemma faced by President Lincoln in the Civil War. He was forced to straddle a line between the slave holding northern states of Maryland, Delaware and even Washington, D.C. itself; while attempting to free the slaves held in the Southern states. The reasoning was simple; without the slave labor in the south, the Confederacy would be in short supply of everything imaginable.  The Emancipation Proclamation only freed the slaves in the states under rebellion, giving the northern states an edge in manufacturing and labor to draw upon.

At the beginning of the war, blacks were allowed to work as laborers, blacksmiths, scouts and spies. But by the time the south had gotten as far as Antietam, Maryland Lincoln changed his mind. Within the next year there would be over 50,000 ex-slaves serving in the Union Army.

By the time the United States entered the First World War the nation was reeling under the Jim Crow laws of the south. Lincoln may have freed the slaves, but nothing could legislate the thinking of the people in the South. They remained opposed to African Americans in the military. My own grandfather, while training for service in that war, was witness to a near riot in Spartanburg, S.C. when a black officer entered the lobby of a “whites only” hotel to buy a newspaper. 

The situation was the same in the rest of the country as well, with black soldiers routinely beaten in Houston, Texas.  The soldiers finally had enough and marched out of Fort Logan and before dawn of the following morning, scores of white citizens, and black soldiers were dead.

When these same soldiers returned from combat overseas they expected to be finally accepted as full citizens, having just fought for their country, as well as the cause of freedom. But aside from a parade in Harlem, things quickly went back to normal with a vengeance. By 1925 the Ku Klux Klan would be marching openly down Pennsylvania Avenue, in front of the White House, fully robed. Down south lynching’s were becoming the norm, with many of the African American veterans being openly targeted due to their service in the war.

When the Second World War broke out the country was still of the mindset that blacks were inferior to whites. Indeed, the Supreme Court still upheld “Separate but Equal” as the law of the land.  It made no sense then, and boggles the imagination now. From the very first day of the war, and the attack on Pearl Harbor, African-Americans distinguished themselves countless times in the face of the enemy; both in the Pacific, as well as in Europe.

When the Japanese began bombing and strafing Pearl Harbor, Steward’s Mate Doris Miller, aboard the West Virginia, saw what needed to be done, and without training, or orders, he did it. He manned an anti-aircraft gun and shot at the Japanese planes, even as his white shipmates lay dying around him. For those actions, he became the first black man to be awarded the Navy Cross. It was pinned upon Doris Miller by Admiral Nimitz in Pearl Harbor on May 27, 1942. He died while still serving his country on Thanksgiving Day 1943.

With the outbreak of the Second World War the military needed to rethink its policies concerning race, and on June 1, 1942 the United States Nave began to accept black recruits. They were trained at Camp Smalls, adjacent to Great Lakes in Illinois. This was the first major step in the desegregation of the entire Armed Forces.

No account of the desegregation of the military can be complete without an accounting of President Harry Truman and his Executive Order formally ending segregation in the services. Born in a border slave state to a viciously prejudiced family, the future President had served in the First World War and seen black troops in service to their country. Although he was not without racial prejudices of his own, he was nowhere near as short sighted about racial issues as many of his fellow countrymen.

On July 26, 1948 Harry Truman signed Executive Order Number 9981 which essentially stated that the Armed Forces of the United States needed to reflect the values we fight for; namely; equal opportunity. What made this so fantastic is that Harry Truman was in the midst of a re-election campaign which no one thought he would win.  Indeed there may have been a political component to Truman’s decision; he wanted the black vote. But there can be no denying that his Executive Order, and the resultant Fahy Committee, were the spears which broke the back of institutionalized racism in the Armed Forces.

The Fahy Committee accomplished the task of desegregation in the Navy and the Air Force in short order.  Both of those branches were ready, and willing, to accept the change. With the Marines and the Army it would be a different matter; a matter of time.

By the outbreak of the Korean War the Army was finally on board with the program and the Marines reluctantly followed in the next decade. Today the Armed Forces are fully integrated, with about 38% of the combined services made up of African-Americans. Has racial prejudice completely disappeared from the military? Not likely; but it’s no longer institutionalized, nor accepted. It took too long, but as they say, “You’ve come a long way baby!” Now it’s on to the newest challenge; women in combat. 

"Midnight Rising" by Tony Horwitz

The best way to begin a review of this book is to quote, as the author has at the beginning of Chapter 3, from Henry David Thoreau, who, in remarks contained in his "A Plea for Captain Brown", said that "He (John Brown) could not have been tried by a jury of his peers, because his peers did not exist." After reading this account of John Brown and his remarkable life, I could not agree more.

Most of us were taught a very simplistic version of the John Brown saga, almost all of what many of us know is contained in the lyrics of that famous song, "John Brown's Body". But there is so much more to the life of this man. He was, at times, what we would today call a manic-depressive. Indeed, some of his family members had been confined to asylums, and some had even committed suicide. Many people, even after a visit to Harper's Ferry, come away with the impression that John Brown was killed that day in October of 1859 when he stormed the Federal Armory there. He was wounded, and lived to face trial for treason, murder and inciting rebellion. He was found guilty within 2 weeks of the crimes for which he was accused. In that time he had 5 different lawyers.

Although mental problems ran in his family, John Brown was considered to be merely a fanatic, with views of grandiosity. In that sense, he was not legally insane. He had none of the hallucinations, or other problems which met the criteria for Virginia to judge him "non compos, or deranged", thus enabling him to avoid a trial for his crimes. He was found guilty and promptly hung.

This book gives the reader a fascinating look at the final year and a half leading to the Civil War. With such characters as Robert E. Lee, then a Union Colonel in charge of putting down the insurrection at Harper's Ferry, and Governor Wise, the author is able to paint a clear and unvarnished picture of one of the most compelling adventures to come out of the Abolitionist Movement.

In the aftermath of the attack, while he lay bleeding, and possibly dying from wounds received during the brief skirmish, John Brown, in great pain, parried with his interrogators, sparring with them, most times to a draw. Governor Wise proclaimed him "the gamest man I have ever met." Senator Mason, who was also present in the immediate aftermath of the fight, had the following exchange with the wounded man;

"How do you justify your actions?" queried the Senator. Brown replied, "I think, my friend you are guilty of a great wrong against God and Humanity. I say that without wishing to be offensive. It would be perfectly right for anyone to interfere with you, so far as to free those you willfully and wickedly hold in bondage. I do not say this insultingly."

Realizing that he would surely be hung for his crimes, he said, "You may dispose of me very easily; I am nearly disposed of now; but this question is to be settled - this Negro question I mean - the end of that is not yet."

In addition to exploring all the details of John Brown's early life, and his plans for the attack on Harper's Ferry, the author delves into the history of the "insanity" plea, which was just coming into its own in American criminal justice. Only months before John Brown's trial began, New York Congressman Daniel Sickles shot his wife’s lover in Washington, DC. He argued, successfully, that he was deranged at the moment of the shooting. He was found not guilty.

This is not the story we were all fed in grammar school. It is, at once, an account of the incident, and attendant crime, as well as a look into ourselves as a people, and our history as a nation. In his essay "Civil Disobedience", Henry David Thoreau pondered these questions; "Is it possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? .....Are laws to be enforced simply because they are made?" These are pertinent questions, even today.