The Black Confederate Who Stole the Steamboat Planter
In my post about Robert Smalls and the “abduction” of the Confederate steamer Planter the other day, I overlooked the last two grafs of the Harper’s Weekly story which, line-for-line, may be the most interesting of the piece:
Our correspondent sends us a drawing of an infernal machine [i.e., a mine], drawn by one of the negro hands of the Planter named Morrison. This chattel, Morrison, gives the following account of himself:
Belonged to Emile Poinchignon [Poincignen]; by trade a tinsmith and plumber; has lived all his life in Charleston; was drum-major of the first regiment of the Fourth Brigade South Carolina Militia, and paraded on the 25th of last month; has a wife and two children in Montgomery, Alabama, whom he expects to see when the war is over. I asked him how he learned to read and write. Answer: “I stole it in the night, Sir.”
Okay, okay. Calling William Morrison a “black Confederate” seems pretty silly under the circumstances. But William Morrison must, in some ways, capture all the complexities of of the situation of many African American men in the Confederacy during the war. Through his trade as a craftsman, Morrison probably enjoyed better circumstances than the majority of enslaved persons in the South, but he remained bound by the system. He suffered from a long, distant absence from his wife and children — no doubt an involuntary one. He learned to read and write not through the efforts of a kind and paternal master, but secretly, though his own initiative — “I stole it in the night.” And when he saw the opportunity to steal himself from his master, he didn’t just run off, but did so in a way that would cause the largest possible damage and embarrassment on the Confederacy, in a way that would (not coincidentally) assure his own death if recaptured. And finally, when he did reach the Federal blockading fleet, he shared with them intelligence about Charleston’s harbor defenses: a mine that, by virtue of his skills as a tinsmith and plumber, he may have actually helped assemble with his own hands.
William Morrison was neither a “happy Negro,” nor a “faithful slave.” Next time someone points to a vague reference to an African American musician or otherwise connected to the Confederate military, and then waxes eloquent about that as evidence of black Confederates fighting for home and hearth against the Yankee invader, etc., etc., ask them about William Morrison of the steamboat Planter.
________________Image: Detail of the print, “Heroes in Ebony — The captors of the Rebel steamer Planter, Robert Small, W. Morrison, A. Gradine and John Small.” Library of Congress.
C.S.S. Georgia to be Excavated
Good news on the nautical archaeology front, in that the wreck of C.S.S. Georgia, and ironclad battery deployed to protect the city of Savannah, will be excavated and preserved as part of the $653M harbor improvement program. The cost of the excavation and conservation is estimated to be around $14M, or just over 2% of the total project cost.
Georgia was originally intended as an ironclad warship, but a lack of suitable powerplant — the bane of Confederate casemate ironclads from Virginia on — resulted in her being moored as a floating battery instead. In twenty months of service she never fired a shot in anger, but would have been a formidable opponent had the Union navy tried to force the port as they did at Charleston, Mobile, and elsewhere. The battery was scuttled by her crew just before Christmas 1864 just as Sherman was poised to seize the city at the end of his “March to the Sea.” You can read more about C.S.S. Georgia here.
Location of the wreck of C.S.S. Georgia (gold ring), opposite Old Fort Jackson.
Photo by Mike Stroud (via To the Sound of the Guns) of a 32-pound banded rifle recovered from the wreck of C.S.S. Georgia, displayed on a reproduction carriage at Fort Jackson.
I saw a comment about this story in which someone snarked, “the Confederate Navy still continues to hinder the US Navy.” Funny, but inaccurate, as the U.S. Navy (through the Naval Historical Center) generally provides a lot of encouragement and guidance when it comes to wrecks like this. (All former Confederate government property transferred to the United States at the end of the war, so former Confederate vessels like Georgia and the famous C.S.S. Alabama are now considered U.S. Navy property, and under their stewardship.) The problem is, the Navy doesn’t have the resources to undertake expensive work like this, and has to rely on other agencies that do have budgets for them, to get the actual work done.
It’s also worth noting that the reason this work is being undertaken at all is because of federal laws that require investigation, assessment, and (in some cases) archaeological recovery of significant historical/cultural material that lies on public land, that would be disturbed or destroyed by development or construction. Most states have similar laws. What will be done in this case is very much like the U.S.S. Westfield Project in Texas, although (I gather) with a bigger budget and the prospect of recovering significant parts of the ship’s structure intact. Without those preservation laws, wrecks like C.S.S. Georgia would’ve been reduced to soggy toothpicks by dredging many years since.
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Image: (top) Naval Historical Center; (bottom) 32-pounder image by Mike Stroud, via To the Sound of the Guns
“Disgusting treachery and negligence”
Today is the sesquicentennial of one of the most audacious acts of the Civil War, when Robert Smalls, an enslaved African American trained as a harbor pilot, took his vessel out the Union blockading fleet off Charleston. It’s already been mentioned several places, with due credit to Smalls and his comrades. As Union Admiral David Dixon Porter put it in his naval history of the war, “this required the greatest heroism, for had he been caught while leaving the wharf, or stopped by the forts, he would have paid the penalty with his life.” More on Smalls and Charleston here.
So given the coverage Smalls’ actions will get — and rightly so — I thought it would be interesting to see the coverage from the other side, from the perspective of Confederate Charleston. Here, from the Charleston Mercury, May 14, 1862:
DISGUSTING TREACHERY AND NEGLIGENCE Yesterday, at daylight, the steamer Planter, in the absence of her officers, was taken by four or five of her colored crew from her berth at Southern Wharf, to the enemy’s fleet. She is a high pressure cotton boat, of light draught, formerly plying on the Pee Dee River, but latterly chartered by the Government, with her officers and crew, from Mr. Ferguson, her owner, and used as a transport and guard boat about the harbor of Charleston. Her armament was a 32-pounder and a 24-pound howitzer. The evening previous she had taken aboard four guns for one of the newly erected works, either that on Morris Island or Fort Timber, viz., a 42-pounder rifled and banded, an 8-inch columbiad, both of which had been struck at the reduction of Ft. Sumter, and 8-inch seacoast howitzer, and a 32-pounder. These guns were to have gone to their destinations early in the morning, and been mounted yesterday. Three sentinels were stationed in sight of her, and a detail of twenty men were within hail for the relief of the post. Between half-past three and four o’clock the Planter steamed up and cast loose, the sentinels having no suspicion of foul play, and thinking she was going about her business. At quarter past four o’clock she passed Fort Sumter, blowing her whistle, and plainly seen. She was reported by the Corporal of the Guard as the guard boat, to the Officer of the Day, Captain Flemming, one of the best and most reliable officers of the garrison. The fort is only called on to recognize authorized boats passing, taking for granted that they have their officers aboard. This was done as usual. The run to Morris Island goes a long way out past the fort, and then turns. The Planter on this trip did not turn. The officers of the Planter were [Charles J.] Relyea, Captain; Smith, Mate; and Pitcher, Engineer. They have been arrested, and will, we learn, be tried by court-martial for disobedience of a standing general order, that the officers and crews of all light draught steamers in the employment of the Government will remain on board day and night. The result of this negligence may be only the loss of the guns and of the boat, desirable for transportation. But things of this kind are sometimes of incalculable injury. The lives and property of this whole community are at stake, and might be jeopardized by event apparently as trifling as this. It ism therefore, due to the Service and to the Cause, that this breach of discipline, however innocent in intention on the part of the officers, should be dealt with as it deserves. Without strict discipline, no military operations can succeed.
Note that the black men who stole the boat get only a passing mention; virtually the entire piece focuses on the incompetence and negligence on the part of Confederate authorities in letting them get away with it. There’s no surprise expressed that Smalls and his companions would attempt to take the boat, so much as shock that they were able to pull it off. The newspaper story makes no hint of a betrayed assumption of loyalty on the part Planter‘s enslaved crew members to either their owners, or to the Confederate cause.
The newspaper got the name of the ship’s mate wrong; he was not “Smith,” but John Smith Hancock. He, Engineer S. Z. Pitcher, and Captain Relyea, went to trial; Relyea and Hancock were both found guilty. Relyea was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment and a $500 fine, which if he did not pay would be commuted into a sentence of two additional months. Hancock was sentenced to one month in prison and a $100 fine. Engineer Pitcher argued “in bar of trial” that the charges were vague and insufficient, and after careful deliberation the charges against him were voided.
In his review of the court martial, however, Major General John C. Pemberton, commanding the Confederate Department of South Carolina and Georgia, overturned the convictions of Relyea and Hancock, noting that Planter‘s owner, Ferguson, “seems to have been entirely deficient as to the deportment of his subordinates.” Pemberton found that while Relyea and Hancock were in violation of general orders, “it is not clearly shown that General Order No. 5, referred to in the specification of the charges, had ever been properly communicated to Captain Relyea, or Hancock, the mate, nor do any measures appear to have been taken by their superiors to force an habitual compliance with the requirements of those orders” (Charleston Mercury, August 1, 1862). Relyea and Hancock were released.
I’ve read online that Captain Relyea was lost at sea between Charleston and Nassau in 1864, suggesting that he got involved in blockade running. Not sure if that’s true, but he left behind a spectacular, gold-headed cane of his that was sold twice last year at auction.
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“Not a harbour over 8 feet.”
Over at the Big Map Blog, they have an 1862 map showing the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts. (The original is in the Library of Congress, here.) The map, published in New York, is intended to show the vulnerability of the Confederate coastline, and the difficulty the South would have in establishing an overseas trade essential to its survival. This was at a time when formal diplomatic recognition of the Confederacy, particularly by France and the United Kingdom, seemed a real possibility, and a potentially-decisive factor in the outcome of the war. The map was, according to its creator, Edmund Blunt,
prepared to show at a glance the difference in extent of the Coasts of the U. States occupied by the loyal men and rebels; its circulation it is believed will have the effect of counteracting the exertions of Traitors at home as well as abroad.
Blunt continued, “persons having correspondents in Europe would do well to send copies of this sketch to them for Circulation.” Heh.
There are a lot of reasons to appreciate this map as an informative tool, not least of which is that it conveys fairly complex information with extreme economy of line and text. (Edward Tufte‘s great-grandfather probably loved it.) There’s not an unnecessary figure or word on it, Blunt’s propagandizing notwithstanding. Union-occupied parts of the coast are shown with a bold line, while Confederate-held areas are drawn with a lighter line. Each potentially significant port or inlet is marked with the maximum depth of water over the bar at its entrance, a critical factor that restricted the size of ships that might effectively use that port. I like the map because it becomes immediately clear how geography shaped Union naval strategy on the one hand, and Confederate blockade-running on the other — why, for example, Mobile and (later) Galveston became important blockade-running ports in the Gulf of Mexico, while other ports did not.
The map also serves as a reminder of just how sparsely-populated and inaccessible some parts of the South were in the 1860s. Almost the entire coast of Louisiana is written off, “not a Harbour over 8 feet.” The southern tip of Florida (the Everglades) from the Keys westward, is noted as being “swampy or uninhabited.” Almost all of Florida’s Atlantic coast, from St. Augustine south to the Keys, is similarly dismissed as being unimportant militarily, or for maritime purposes. Sorry, Josephine.
So what are your favorite CW maps, and why?
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Why Movies Are More Gooder Than Reality
My favorite scene in the 1993 film Gettysburg is this one, where Hood rides to General Longstreet, his corps commander, to protest the order to make a frontal assault on Little Round Top. It’s brief, direct, and poignant; the way the dialogue is framed, even someone who knows nothing about Gettysburg understands immediately that the attack is doomed to fail. It perfectly encapsulates the conflict between the generals; too bad that encounter never happened.
At least, it didn’t happen the way it’s depicted in the movie, which is widely heralded in some quarters as being particularly faithful to the historical record. There’s no question that Hood protested his orders to make a frontal assault on the Federal position, and reluctantly complied with his orders, but the details of how that exchange came about are considerably different, as reported by three officers who were there.
Here is Evander M. Law’s (1836-1920, right) account of the event, from his article, “‘Round Top’ and the Confederate Right at Gettysburg,” published in the December 1886 issue of The Century Magazine. At the time, Law commanded the Alabama Brigade in Hood’s Division, and succeeded to command of the division when Hood was wounded early in the action:
I found General Hood on the ridge where his line had been formed, communicated to him the information I had obtained, and pointed out the ease with which a movement by the right flank might be made. He coincided fully in my views, but said that his orders were positive to attack in front, as soon as the left of the corps should get into position. I therefore entered a formal protest against a direct attack. . . .
General Hood called up Captain Hamilton, of his staff, and requested me to repeat the protest to him, and the grounds on which it was made. He then directed Captain Hamilton to find General Longstreet as quickly as possible and deliver the protest, and to say to him that he (Hood) indorsed it fully. Hamilton rode off at once, but in about ten minutes returned, accompanied by a staff-officer of General Longstreet, who said to General Hood, in my hearing, ” General Longstreet orders that you begin the attack at once.” Hood turned to me and merely said, ” You hear the order ? ” I at once moved my brigade to the assault. I do not know whether the protest ever reached General Lee. From the brief interval that elapsed between the time it was sent to General Longstreet and the receipt of the order to begin the attack, I am inclined to think it did not. General Longstreet has since said that he repeatedly advised against a front attack and suggested a movement by our right flank. He may have thought, after the rejection of this advice by General Lee, that it was useless to press the matter further.
Just here the battle of Gettysburg was lost to the Confederate arms.
In his own account, James Longstreet (1821-1904) acknowledges Hood’s appeals not to go forward with the attack as planned, but also suggests that even when the matter was decided, Hood dragged his feet in executing it:
Hood’s division was in two lines, Law’s and Robertson’s brigades in front, G. T. Anderson’s and Benning’s in the second line. The batteries were with the divisions, four to the division. One of G. T. Anderson’s regiments was put on picket down the Emmitsburg road. General Hood appealed again and again for the move to the right, but, to give more confidence to his attack, he was reminded that the move to the right had been carefully considered by our chief and rejected in favor of his present orders. . . .
Prompt to the order the combat opened, followed by artillery of the other corps, and our artillerists measured up to the better metal of the enemy by vigilant work. Hood’s lines were not yet ready. After a little practice by the artillery, he was properly adjusted and ordered to bear down upon the enemy’s left, but he was not prompt, and the order was repeated before he would strike down.
In his usual gallant style he led his troops through the rocky fastnesses against the strong lines of his earnest adversary, and encountered battle that called for all of his power and skill. The enemy was tenacious of his strong ground ; his skilfully-handled batteries swept through the passes between the rocks ; the more deadly fire of infantry concentrated as our men bore upon the angle of the enemy’s line and stemmed the fiercest onset, until it became necessary to shorten their work by a desperate charge. This pressing struggle and the cross-fire of our batteries broke in the salient angle, but the thickening fire, as the angle was pressed back, hurt Hood’s left and held him in steady fight. His right brigade was drawn towards Round Top by the heavy fire pouring from that quarter, Benning’s brigade was pressed to the thickening line at the angle, and G. T. Anderson’s was put in support of the battle growing against Hood’s right.
There’s no mention in either Law’s or Longstreet’s accounts of the two men arguing the matter face-to-face.
Division commander John Bell Hood (1831-79), in his posthumously-published memoir, gave this version of events, recounted in a letter he’d written to Longstreet a decade after the conflict:
A third time I despatched one of my staff [to Longstreet] to explain fully in regard to the situation, and suggest that you had better come and look for yourself. I selected, in this instance, my adjutant-general, Colonel Harry Sellers, whom you know to be not only an officer of great courage, but also of marked ability. Colonel Sellers returned with the same message, ‘General Lee’s orders are to attack up the Emmetsburg road.’ Almost simultaneously. Colonel Fairfax, of your staff, rode up and repeated the above orders.
After this urgent protest against entering the battle at Gettysburg, according to instructions — which protest is the first and only one I ever made during my entire military career — I ordered my line to advance and make the assault.
As my troops were moving forward, you [Longstreet] rode up in person; a brief conversation passed between us, during which I again expressed the fears above mentioned, and regret at not being allowed to attack in flank around Round Top. You answered to this effect, ‘ We must obey the orders of General Lee.’ I then rode forward with my line under a heavy fire. In about twenty minutes, after reaching the peach orchard, I was severely wounded in the arm, and borne from the field.
Hood’s account is the earliest of the three, and closest to the scene in the film. But while it does recount a face-to-face meeting between him and Longstreet, it differs from the movie encounter in two critical aspects. First, Hood makes it clear that it was Longstreet who came to him, not the other way around. More important, when they did meet, the issue had already been decided, and Hood’s Division was already advancing. At this point, the decision to commit his troops to a frontal assault was final — “I again expressed the fears above mentioned, and regret at not being allowed to attack in flank around Round Top.” Like Law, Hood says his formal protest was made through staff officers earlier, not directly to Longstreet himself, and there’s no suggestion that when they did met, their exchange was anywhere near as heated as depicted in the movie.
So what really happened? All three accounts are pretty consistent, given the passage of years, and none has Hood riding over to his corps commander to make his plea in person. (Indeed, to have absented himself from his division to do so during a battle, in fact, might have been seen as dereliction; generals are surrounded by staff officers and couriers for just that purpose.) If the two discussed it at all in person, as Hood describes, it was after the matter had already been settled and his division’s regiments were on the move.
Kevin has mentioned before how another important Civil War film, Glory, both highlighted and badly over-simplified the “pay crisis” that enveloped the 54th Massachusetts and other early black regiments. Virtually all films of that sort have to simplify events, compress timelines and (sometimes) create composite characters to advance the story at a regular pace, and help the audience follow the plot. It’s just a fact of story-telling on film.
I don’t especially fault Ron Maxwell, who both directed Gettysburg and wrote the screenplay, for handling this part of the story, in this way. It neatly, and dramatically, encapsulates the real-life conflict between Old Pete and Sam Hood in a way that more-historically-accurate shots of staff officers galloping back and forth across the Pennsylvania countryside could never achieve. It’s more effective storytelling, and it accurately reflects the positions of the principals. But even when, as in this case, it speaks to a larger truth, one should never confuse it with the truth.
And I still love that scene.
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LoS President: Democracy Only Works When White Folks Run Things
You’ve got to appreciate the candor of J. Michael Hill, founder, president, and self-described “big chief” of the League of the South; he leaves no one in doubt about what really matters to him:
Majority rule only works where there is already a consensus of sorts on the fundamental issues within a particular society. For instance, in a Christian nation that enjoys a high degree of homogeneity in its racial and ethnic make-up, language, institutions, and inherited culture, most matters up for a vote are largely superficial policy issues. They don’t tamper with the agreed-upon foundations of the society. However, in a multicultural and multiracial polyglot Empire such as ours is today, the concept of majority rule is often fraught with dire (and even deadly) consequences for the losers, especially if the winners bear a grudge. As I write in 2012, there are projections that these United States—and our beloved Southland–will have a white minority by 2040 (or before, depending on immigration policy). Simply put, that will mean the end of society as we know it. You and Bill Clinton may be OK with this, but I’m not. Who stands to lose by this devil’s bargain? The descendants of America’s founding stock will be the losers. As a native white Southerner, I’m primarily concerned about the future of the South. Our ancestors bequeathed us a republican society based on Christian moral principles, the English language, racial (and some degree of ethnic) homogeneity, and British legal and political institutions. All this will be gone with the wind if we don’t stand as united white Southerners against the unholy leftist trinity of “tolerance, diversity, and multiculturalism.”
To be sure, this line of argument is nothing new coming from Hill; this essay dates back to 2007 (at least), with only a few slight edits. It’s not a gaffe, a one-off, but rather suggestive of a thought-out, stable perspective on Hill’s part. It’s policy, and an idea he’s expressed before:
We are already at war—we just don’t know it. One instance: Immigration. This is not just a matter of policy. It’s a matter of our very survival as white men and women of European Christian stock on this land we call the South. It is a zero sum game—we win or they win. There is no middle ground for compromise. Losing means that my grandchildren will grow up in a third world country. Multiculturalism and diversity means “we” cease to exist as a viable and prosperous people.
You have to wonder what Hill sees as the role and voice for African Americans and others is in his vision of an independent South is; some of those folks undoubtedly have families that trace back as far as Hill’s does, regardless of how they came to be there. (And note, as Will Rogers used to say, “some of them were there to meet the boat.”) What is their voice, their political agency in the “Free South” Hill and the League of the South envision? Sure, there will always be a place for highly-paid entertainers, fluffing people like Hill and assuring them how grateful black folks ought to be for helping them when the Supreme Court forced Jim Crow on the South, but what about everybody else?
Honesty can be invigorating, even when it’s unpleasant — like getting a cold bucket of water dumped on you. For all the discussion of abstract concepts like liberty and freedom, Hill’s core concern is, explicitly, about maintaining and preserving white power — political, cultural and social. His candor should be welcomed; it’s always good to know exactly where he and the League of the South stand, and what they stand for.
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Come On, Texas!
On Saturday I had the opportunity to take a “hard-hat” tour of U.S.S. Texas (BB-35), which is preserved as a museum ship at the San Jacinto Battleground, near Houston. She’s one-of-a-kind, the last dreadnought battleship from the first great arms race of the 20th century. The tour was arranged by my colleague, Amy Borgens, for the benefit of the Marine Archaeological Stewards group. The tour was led by Ship Manager Andy Smith and the ship’s Curator, Travis Davis. There’s not very much about Texas that one or the other of those men doesn’t know.
It was quite remarkable, and I would urge anyone with a particular interest in technology or maritime history to take a similar tour if you can. Though the focus was mostly on the technology of the ship — structure, fittings and operation –there were quite a few very human touches, like personal locker whose owner had made a careful running account, inside the door, of all the other Texas sailors who owed him money. It was a long list. One of our group, a Navy veteran himself, commented that “there’s a guy like that in every division.”
The ship desperately needs a major overhaul and rebuilding of specific areas. There’s a significant amount of money set aside for this work already, but it’s not likely to be enough given the scale of the task, and plans are still being made to see how best to tackle the ship’s restoration and preservation with the resources available. As Ship Manager Andy Smith explained, it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. It’s hard to raise money without very concrete, specific plans as to how you’re going to spend it; at the same time, though, it’s hard to make detailed and pragmatic plans if you don’t know how much money you’re going to have to work with.
“Come on, Texas!” was a cheer her sailors used when rooting for their messmates in athletic competitions with other ships in the fleet, and it seems appropriate for this stage in the ship’s life, as well. In a few days, on May 18, 2012, U.S.S. Texas will mark her 100th birthday. Here’s hoping she’s still around for her 200th.
This diagram shows the locations appearing in the following images, roughly in order from aft (left), moving forward. More pictures after the jump:
Was Confederate Conscription an Instrument of Social Justice?
Was the Confederate Conscription Act what we today might describe as an instrument of social justice? Over at the Civil War Monitor, I point out that some Confederates at the time thought so. The money quote:
Equal burthens and equal benefits is a cardinal principal in American liberty.
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Image: “The Awkward Squad” by Walton Taber.
2012 Menard Summer Lecture Series
The Galveston Historical Foundation has announced its 2012 Menard Summer Lecture Series, this year focusing on the sesquicentennial of the Civil War. I’ve been honored to be asked to participate, along with some of great historians it’s been my pleasure to know. Presentations will be offered on Sunday afternoons in June, July and August, on the dates listed. Reservations are recommended. Tickets for individual lectures are $10 for GHF members and $12 for non-members; tickets for the entire series are $35 and $40, respectively. Reservations may be made with Jami Durham at GHF at 409-765-3409.
“Overview: The Battle of Galveston“
Dr. Donald Willett, June 3rd at 2:00 p.m.
On October 8, 1862 the city of Galveston, the largest and wealthiest city in Texas, surrendered to Union forces. For most Texans this action was unacceptable. In response, the Confederacy sent General John Bankhead Magruder to the Lone Star State to avenge the defeat. Magruder quickly put in place a brash plan that defied all military logic, defeating the superior Union forces and forcing them to abandon the “Queen City of the Gulf.” Galveston became the only Southern seaport ever recaptured by the Confederacy and the only major seaport still in Rebel hands when General Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. Don Willett is an Associate Professor in the Maritime Studies Program at Texas A&M University at Galveston, where he teaches classes on American and Texas history, the American Civil War and reconstruction and the history of American sea power. He earned his BA from St. Edward’s University, his MA from Stephen F. Austin State University and his doctorate from Texas A&M University. He is past president of the East Texas Historical Association and on the Board of Directors for the Gulf South Historical Association. Willett has published two books on Texas history, The Texas That Might Have Been: Sam Houston’s Foes Write to Albert Sidney Johnston and Invisible Texans, as well as several articles. He is currently working on an anthology of Galveston titled Galveston Odyssey: Essays on Galveston History.
“The General Behind Juneteenth”
Edward T. Cotham, Jr., June 17th, 2:00 p.m.
It has become one of the most important symbols of the end of the Civil War and the coming of Emancipation. But what do we really know about the events that shaped it? On June 19, 1865, General Gordon Granger issued General Orders No. 3 from his headquarters in Galveston. Granger’s order confirmed that the Emancipation Proclamation was in effect in Texas. Celebrated today as the origin of the “Juneteenth” festivities, General Granger’s June 19 order was actually the result of a long chain of political and military events involving the battles and leaders of the Civil War. In his multi-media presentation, Ed Cotham will describe the events that led to General Granger’s arrival in Galveston, the issuance of the Juneteenth order, and the reaction to that order.
Edward T. Cotham, Jr. is the prize-winning author of many books and articles on Civil War history, emphasizing the battles and skirmishes in Texas. A frequent lecturer on these subjects, Ed also leads occasional tours of Texas battlefields and state historic sites. His published works include Battle on the Bay: the Civil War Struggle for Galveston, Sabine Pass: the Confederacy’s Thermopylae, and The Southern Journey of a Civil War Marine: The Illustrated Note-Book of Henry O. Gusley. Ed wrote a chapter on Federal naval strategy and Texas in The Seventh Star of the Confederacy: Texas during the Civil War. This book was the winner of the Fort Worth Civil War Round Table’s A.M. Pate, Jr. Award for excellence in research and writing on the Civil War in the Trans-Mississippi.
Mr. Cotham is President of the Terry Foundation in Houston, Texas. The Terry Foundation is the largest private source of scholarships at Texas universities with more than 700 Terry Scholars on scholarship. He holds an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of Houston and a Masters Degree in Economics from the University of Chicago. A native Texan, Cotham returned to Texas to obtain a Law Degree from the University of Texas in 1979.
“For-Profit Patriots: Blockade Runners of the Texas Coast”
Andrew Hall, July 15th at 2:00 p.m.
In the closing months of the Civil War, long, low blockade runners slipped in and out of Texas ports, racing both to keep the Confederacy supplied, and to generate dramatic profits for their owners. It was a risky, high-stakes gamble that was the foundation for many fortunes on both sides of the Atlantic. Almost 150 years later, archaeologists and historians have begun to uncover the stories of these remarkable vessels. The discovery of the paddle steamer Denbigh in 1997, and of a wreck believed to be the famous Will o’ the Wisp in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, open the door to a long-overlooked story of patriotism, avarice and daring during those last desperate months of the conflict.
Andrew Hall has served as a volunteer with the Texas Historical Commission investigating shipwrecks for more than 20 years, and was part of the first group of state marine archaeological stewards appointed in the United States in 2001. Hall served as co-principal investigator of the Denbigh Project, the most extensive excavation and research program on a Civil War blockade runner in the Gulf of Mexico. He has served as historian, illustrator or website developer on several nautical archaeology projects, including the 1686 wreck of the French ship La Belle (1995-97) the Civil War blockade runner Denbigh (1997-2003), and the U-166 Project (2003). He wrote the chapter on the interface between nautical archaeology and the Internet in the International Handbook of Underwater Archaeology (2002), and has co-authored several other journal articles.
“Yellow Fever in Galveston During the Civil War”
James Schmidt, August 12th at 2:00 p.m.
“No disease brought more fear and more deaths to Galveston’s early residents than yellow fever,” one modern historian has justly declared. No less than seven major epidemics struck Galveston between 1837 and 1860, killing more than two thousand people. Yet another deadly yellow fever epidemic struck Galveston in the summer and autumn of 1864 during the Civil War, striking civilians and Confederate troops that garrisoned the island. The lecture will examine the grim – yet interesting – role that yellow fever played during the Civil War in Galveston, including misconceptions of the causes of disease, precautions that could have been taken, and heroism displayed in sick rooms, in the voices of those who lived through it.
James Schmidt is a chemist by training and profession. After receiving his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Central Oklahoma, he has worked in a number of private, government, and industrial laboratories, and is currently employed as a scientist with a biotech firm in The Woodlands, Texas.
Mr. Schmidt has had a life-long interest in history, with a special regard for the Civil War. His historical writing credits include more than fifty articles for The Civil War News, North & South, Learning Through History, World War II, and Chemical Heritage magazines, and other publications. Mr. Schmidt is also a popular speaker and has given lectures on the Civil War to groups around the country.
Mr. Schmidt’s books, Lincoln’s Labels: America’s Best Known Brands and the Civil War, Years of Change and Suffering: Modern Perspectives on Civil War Medicine co-edited with Guy Hasegawa, and Notre Dame and the Civil War: Marching Onward to Victory, have received praise from both popular and academic historians alike. His next book, Galveston and the Civil War: Voices of an Island in the Maelstrom, will be published by The History Press in Fall 2012.
It’s going to be a great summer.
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Major Patton, Discipline, and the Limits of Enthusiasm in the Civil War
In 1932 a U.S. Army cavalry officer, Major George S. Patton, Jr., submitted a term paper to the Army War College on the likely characteristics of the next major war, and how the military should prepare for that event. As part of the background to his analysis, Major Patton gave brief synopses of previous wars going back to Egypt’s Sixth Dynasty, and the broad lessons to be derived from them. This is what Patton wrote about the American Civil War:
In the Civil War both sides used identical organizations and tactics.
Lesson. — Identical methods produce long wars. Up until the Summer of 1863 a regular force on either side would have had decisive results. After that date both sides were professional in everything but discipline. NOTE. — In 1864, Lee wrote a long order on the necessity of securing discipline. (HENDERSON) The initial successes of the South were largely due to the fact that the superior enthusiasm — emotional urge — replaced discipline. In the North this enthusiasm was less marked, especially in the eastern armies.
The reference Patton cites appears to be this passage in G. F. R. Henderson’s Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War:
That [Lee's] circular [on discipline] was considered necessary after the troops had been nearly four years under arms establishes beyond all question that the discipline of the Confederate army was not that of the regular troops with whom General Lee had served under the Stars and Stripes; but it is not to be understood that he attributed the deficiencies of his soldiers to any spirit of resistance on their part to the demands of subordination. Elsewhere he says, “The greatest difficulty I find is in causing orders and regulations to be obeyed. This arises not from a spirit of disobedience, but from ignorance.” And here, with his usual perspicacity, he goes straight to the root of the evil. When the men in the ranks understand all that discipline involves, safety, health, efficiency, victory, it is easily maintained; and it is because experience and tradition have taught them this that veteran armies are so amenable to control. “Soldiers,” says Sir Charles Napier, “must obey in all things. They may and do laugh at foolish orders, but they nevertheless obey, not because they are blindly obedient, but because they know that to disobey is to break the backbone of their profession.” Such knowledge, however, is long in coming, even to the regular, and it may be questioned whether it ever really came home to the Confederates. In fact, the Southern soldier, ignorant, at the outset, of what may be accomplished by discipline, never quite got rid of the belief that the enthusiasm of the individual, his goodwill and his native courage, was a more than sufficient substitute. ‘The spirit which animates our soldiers,’ wrote Lee, ‘ and the natural courage with which they are so liberally endowed, have led to a reliance upon those good qualities, to the neglect of measures which would increase their efficiency and contribute to their safety.” Yet the soldier was hardly to blame. Neither he nor his regimental officers had any previous knowledge of war when they were suddenly launched against the enemy, and there was no time to instil into them the habits of discipline. There was no regular army to set them an example ; no historic force whose traditions they would unconsciously have adopted; the exigencies of the service forbade the retention of the men in camps of instruction, and trained instructors could not be spared from more important duties. Such ignorance, however, as that which prevailed in the Southern ranks is not always excusable. It would be well if those who pose as the friends of the private soldier, as his protectors from injustice, realised the mischief they may do by injudicious sympathy. The process of being broken to discipline is undoubtedly galling to the instincts of free men, and it is beyond question that among a multitude of superiors, some will be found who are neither just nor considerate. Instances of hardship must inevitably occur. But men and officers-for discipline presses as hardly on the officers as on the men-must obey, no matter at what cost to their feelings, for obedience to orders, instant and unhesitating, is not only the life-blood of armies but the security of States; and the doctrine that under any conditions whatever deliberate disobedience can be justified is treason to the commonwealth.
That the Confederate armies matched off to war in 1861 with great enthusiasm is undoubted, as was the widespread belief that one Confederate soldier could whip five, ten, twenty Yankees. But Patton makes the point that both the Union and Confederate armies, being overwhelmingly composed of non-professionals, always lacked that final ingredient that marked professional armies, that of unbending discipline. (Lee may have bemoaned the lack of discipline, but was himself known to be a soft touch.)
In his paper, Patton suggests a drop-off in Confederate enthusiasm from mid-1863 on, but Henderson goes further, making the argument that when the enthusiasm that had marked the Confederate effort during the first two years of the war began to fail, after two hard years of war and twin defeats at Vicksburg and Gettysburg, the Union was just finally taking hold of a cause that would carry them to victory. Henderson writes:
Enthusiasm in the [Union's] cause was fast diminishing when Lincoln, purely on his own initiative, proclaimed emancipation, and, investing the war with the dignity of a crusade, inspired the soldier with a new incentive, and appealed to a feeling which had not yet been stirred. Many Northerners had not thought it worth while to fight for the re-establishment of the Union on the basis of the Constitution. If slavery was to be permitted to continue they preferred separation; and these men were farmers and agriculturists, the class which furnished the best soldiers, men of American birth, for the most part abolitionists, and ready to fight for the principle they had so much at heart. It is true that the effect of the edict was not at once apparent. It was not received everywhere with acclamation. The army had small sympathy with the coloured race, and the political opponents of the President accused him vehemently of unconstitutional action. Their denunciations, however, missed the mark. The letter of the Constitution, as Mr. Lincoln clearly saw, had ceased to be regarded, at least by the great bulk of the people, with superstitious reverence. They had learned to think more of great principles than of political expedients; and if the defence of their hereditary rights had welded the South into a nation, the assertion of a still nobler principle, the liberty of man, placed the North on a higher plane, enlisted the sympathy of Europe, and completed the isolation of the Confederacy.
It’s worth recalling that, though he was born in California, Major Patton was a Virginian by family history, a former cadet of the Virginia Military Institute, and the namesake of his grandfather, a Confederate officer mortally wounded at the Third Battle of Winchester. When Patton was a child, one of his father’s closest friends, and a frequent visitor to the Patton household, was John S. Mosby, one of the most famous cavarlymen of the war. Patton’s “Confed cred,” as it were, is unassailable, and his admiration for the soldiers of the Confederacy is unquestioned. But at the same time, neither he nor his source, Henderson, fall into the ideology of the Lost Cause, that the South was simply overwhelmed by force of numbers, its nobility and morale intact. Rather, they argue that a lack of discipline, in both armies, was temporarily offset by gung-ho enthusiasm and esprit, that finally came to full flower in the Union army — “investing the war with the dignity of a crusade” — just as it began to falter in the Confederate ranks.
Are they right?
(H/t to Tom Ricks’ fantastic Best Defense blog.)
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Image: Colonel George S. Patton, Jr., between the World Wars. Fort George G. Meade Museum.
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