Hari Jones Drops the Hammer on National Observance of Juneteenth
Hari Jones, Curator of the African American Civil War Museum, drops the hammer on the movement to make Juneteenth a national holiday, and the organization behind it, the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation (NJoF). He argues that the narrative used to justify the propose holiday does little to credit African Americans with taking up their own struggle, and instead presents them as passive players in emancipation, waiting on the beneficence of the Union army to do it for them. Further, he presses, the standard Juneteenth narrative carries forward a long-standing, intentional effort to suppress the story of how African Americans, in ways large and small, worked to emancipate themselves, particularly by taking up arms for the Union. He wraps up a stem-winder:
Certainly, informed and knowledgeable people should not celebrate the suppression of their own history. Juneteenth day is a de facto celebration of such suppression. Americans, especially Americans of African descent, should not celebrate when the enslaved were freed by someone else, because that’s not the accurate story. They should celebrate when the enslaved freed themselves, by saving the Union. Such freedmen were heroes, not spectators, and their story is currently being suppressed by the advocates of the Juneteenth national holiday. The Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves; it made it legal for this disenfranchised, enslaved population to free themselves, while maintaining the supremacy of the Constitution, and preserving the Union. They became the heroes of the Republic. It is as Lincoln said: without the military help of the black freedman, the war against the South could not have been won.
That’s worth celebrating. That’s worth telling. The story of how Americans of African descent helped save the Union, and freed themselves. Let’s celebrate the truth, a glorious history, a story of a glorious march to Liberty.
One gets the idea that Jones’ beef with the NJoF and its director, Dr. Ronald Myers, is about something more personal than mere historical narrative.
Jones makes a powerful argument, with solid points. But I think he misses something crucial, which is that in Texas, where Juneteenth originated, it’s been a regular celebration since 1866. It is not a modern holiday, established retroactively to commemorate an event in the long past; the celebration of Juneteenth is as old as emancipation itself. It was created and carried on by the freedmen and -women themselves:
Some of the early emancipation festivities were relegated by city authorities to a town’s outskirts; in time, however, black groups collected funds to purchase tracts of land for their celebrations, including Juneteenth. A common name for these sites was Emancipation Park. In Houston, for instance, a deed for a ten-acre site was signed in 1872, and in Austin the Travis County Emancipation Celebration Association acquired land for its Emancipation Park in the early 1900s; the Juneteenth event was later moved to Rosewood Park. In Limestone County the Nineteenth of June Association acquired thirty acres, which has since been reduced to twenty acres by the rising of Lake Mexia.
Particular celebrations of Juneteenth have had unique beginnings or aspects. In the state capital Juneteenth was first celebrated in 1867 under the direction of the Freedmen’s Bureau and became part of the calendar of public events by 1872. Juneteenth in Limestone County has gathered “thousands” to be with families and friends. At one time 30,000 blacks gathered at Booker T. Washington Park, known more popularly as Comanche Crossing, for the event. One of the most important parts of the Limestone celebration is the recollection of family history, both under slavery and since. Another of the state’s memorable celebrations of Juneteenth occurred in Brenham, where large, racially mixed crowds witness the annual promenade through town. In Beeville, black, white, and brown residents have also joined together to commemorate the day with barbecue, picnics, and other festivities.
It’s one thing to argue with another historian or community leader about the the historical narrative represented by a public celebration (think Columbus Day), but it’s entirely another to — in effect — dismiss the understanding of the day as originally celebrated by the people who actually lived those events, and experienced them at first hand.
What do you think?
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h/t Kevin. Image: Juneteenth celebration in Austin, June 19, 1900. PICA 05476, Austin History Center, Austin Public Library.
Juneteenth, History and Tradition
[This post originally appeared here on June 19, 2010.]
“Emancipation” by Thomas Nast. Ohio State University.
Juneteenth has come again, and (quite rightly) the Galveston County Daily News, the paper that first published General Granger’s order that forms the basis for the holiday, has again called for the day to be recognized as a national holiday:
Those who are lobbying for a national holiday are not asking for a paid day off. They are asking for a commemorative day, like Flag Day on June 14 or Patriot Day on Sept. 11. All that would take is a presidential proclamation. Both the U.S. House and Senate have endorsed the idea.
Why is a national celebration for an event that occurred in Galveston and originally affected only those in a single state such a good idea?
Because Juneteenth has become a symbol of the end of slavery. No matter how much we may regret the tragedy of slavery and wish it weren’t a part of this nation’s story, it is. Denying the truth about the past is always unwise.
For those who don’t know, Juneteenth started in Galveston. On Jan. 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. But the order was meaningless until it could be enforced. It wasn’t until June 19, 1865 — after the Confederacy had been defeated and Union troops landed in Galveston — that the slaves in Texas were told they were free.
People all across the country get this story. That’s why Juneteenth celebrations have been growing all across the country. The celebration started in Galveston. But its significance has come to be understood far, far beyond the island, and far beyond Texas.
This is exactly right. Juneteenth is not just of relevance to African Americans or Texans, but for all who ascribe to the values of liberty and civic participation in this country. A victory for civil rights for any group is a victory for us all, and there is none bigger in this nation’s history than that transformation represented by Juneteenth.
But as widespread as Juneteenth celebrations have become — I was pleased and surprised, some years ago, to see Juneteenth celebration flyers pasted up in Minnesota — there’s an awful lot of confusion and misinformation about the specific events here, in Galveston, in June 1865 that gave birth to the holiday. The best published account of the period appears in Edward T. Cotham’s Battle on the Bay: The Civil War Struggle for Galveston, from which much of what follows is abstracted.
The United States Customs House, Galveston.
On June 5, Captain B. F. Sands entered Galveston harbor with the Union naval vessels Cornubia and Preston. Sands went ashore with a detachment and raised the United States flag over the federal customs house for about half an hour. Sands made a few comments to the largely silent crowd, saying that he saw this event as the closing chapter of the rebellion, and assuring the local citizens that he had only worn a sidearm that day as a gesture of respect for the mayor of the city.
Site of General Granger’s headquarters, southwest corner of 22nd Street and Strand.
A large number of Federal troops came ashore over the next two weeks, including detachments of the 76th Illinois Infantry. Union General Gordon Granger, newly-appointed as military governor for Texas, arrived on June 18, and established his headquarters in Osterman Building (now gone) on the southwest corner of 22nd and Strand. The provost marshal, which acted largely as a military police force, set up in the Customs House. The next day, June 19, a Monday, Granger issued five general orders, establishing his authority over the rest of Texas and laying out the initial priorities of his administration. General Orders Nos. 1 and 2 asserted Granger’s authority over all Federal forces in Texas, and named the key department heads in his administration of the state for various responsibilities. General Order No. 4 voided all actions of the Texas government during the rebellion, and asserted Federal control over all public assets within the state. General Order No. 5 established the Army’s Quartermaster Department as sole authorized buyer for cotton, until such time as Treasury agents could arrive and take over those responsibilities.
It is General Order No. 3, however, that is remembered today. It was short and direct:
Headquarters, District of Texas
Galveston, Texas, June 19, 1865General Orders, No. 3
The people are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property, between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them, becomes that between employer and hired labor. The Freedmen are advised to remain at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts; and that they will not be supported in idleness either there ro elsewhere.
By order of
Major-General Granger
F. W. Emery, Maj. & A. . G.
What’s less clear is how this order was disseminated. It’s likely that printed copies were put up in public places. It was published on June 21 in the Galveston Daily News, but otherwise it is not known if it was ever given a formal, public and ceremonial reading. Although the symbolic significance of General Order No. 3 cannot be overstated, its main legal purpose was to reaffirm what was well-established and widely known throughout the South, that with the occupation of Federal forces came the emancipation of all slaves within the region now coming under Union control.
The James Moreau Brown residence, now known as Ashton Villa, at 24th & Broadway in Galveston. This site is well-established in local tradition as the site of the original Juneteenth proclamation, although direct evidence is lacking.
Local tradition has long held that General Granger took over James Moreau Brown’s home on Broadway, Ashton Villa, as a residence for himself and his staff. To my knowledge, there is no direct evidence for this. Along with this comes the tradition that the Ashton Villa was also the site where the Emancipation Proclamation was formally read out to the citizenry of Galveston. This belief has prevailed for many years, and is annually reinforced with events commemorating Juneteenth both at the site, and also citing the site. In years past, community groups have even staged “reenactments” of the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation from the second-floor balcony, something which must surely strain the limits of reasonable historical conjecture. As far as I know, the property’s operators, the Galveston Historical Foundation, have never taken an official stand on the interpretation that Juneteenth had its actual origins on the site. Although I myself have serious doubts about Ashton Villa having having any direct role in the original Juneteenth, I also appreciate that, as with the band playing “Nearer, My God, to Thee” as Titanic sank beneath the waves, arguing against this particular cherished belief is undoubtedly a losing battle.
Assuming that either the Emancipation Proclamation (or alternately, Granger’s brief General Order No. 3) was formally, ceremonially read out to the populace, where did it happen? Charles Waldo Hayes, writing several years after the war, says General Order No. 3 was “issued from [Granger’s] headquarters,” but that sounds like a figurative description rather than a literal one. My bet would not be Ashton Villa, but one of two other sites downtown already mentioned: the Osterman Building, where Granger’s headquarters was located and where the official business of the Federal occupation was done initially, or at the United States Customs House, which was the symbol of Federal property both in Galveston and the state as a whole, and (more important still) was the headquarters of Granger’s provost marshal, Lieutenant Colonel Rankin G. Laughlin of the 94th Illinois Infantry. It’s easy to imagine Lt. Col. Laughlin dragging a crate out onto the sidewalk in front of the Customs House and barking out a brief, and somewhat perfunctory, read-through of all five of the general’s orders in quick succession. No flags, no bands, and probably not much of a crowd to witness the event. My personal suspicion is that, were we to travel back to June 1865 and witness the origin of this most remarkable and uniquely-American holiday, we’d find ourselves very disappointed in how the actual events played out at the time.
Maybe the Ashton Villa tradition is preferable, after all.
“Further legislation on that subject at this time is not advisable.”
Over at Civil War Memory, Kevin highlights a resolution passed by the North Carolina Legislature on February 3, 1865, “against the arming of slaves by the Confederate government, in any emergency that can possibly arise.” The timing of this is significant; not only was the Confederate Congress in Richmond actively debating the subject, but Sherman had just begun his march northward through the Carolinas, crossing the Georgia border into South Carolina two days before. Even with increasingly gloomy reports from Virginia on one side, and Sherman’s army — now rested and resupplied after taking Savannah just before Christmas — starting a new campaign from their south, the North Carolina Legislature could not envision “any emergency that can possibly arise” that would justify the arming of slaves.
Although the question of enlisting slaves had popped up from time to time in the local press, it appears that the Texas Legislature never considered the issue in a meaningful way, or adopted a formal and definitive resolution as did North Carolina. Part of the problem was timing; the Texas Legislature was not in session during the last months of the war, when the question of arming slaves came to a head. The last Texas Confederate Lege, the 10th, met in regular session in November and December 1863, with special called sessions in May 1864 and again in October/November 1864. The closest they got to the question was a motion referred to committee for consideration, for a resolution to urge Texas’ representatives and senators in Richmond to expand Confederate national laws for increased impressment of slaves as labor. The committee declined, reporting back to the Speaker of the House that “in their opinion the impressment law of the Confederate States now in force makes sufficient provisions for the impressment of Negroes, and that further legislation on that subject at this time is not advisable.”
Governor Pendelton Murrah (right) did, however, make a passing reference to slave labor in connection with eliminating the various exemptions from service that white men were claiming to remain in civilian jobs at home. In an address to both houses of the Lege at the beginning of the 10th Legislature, he argued (p. 21, 10.4MB PDF) that
The swarms of men engaged in profitable business on their own accounts, who are exempted from, or avoid military service upon one pretext or another — the thousands occupied in driving teams and cattle for the government and government contractors must be placed in their respective companies, and replaced with Negroes. The able-bodied soldiers and employees about the posts and towns must take the field and their places be supplied by the old, the very young, and the infirm.
It doesn’t appear that the prospect of enlisting slaves in Texas was ever a serious enough question to generate substantive discussion or debate in Austin. It was a proposition, it seems, not even worthy of formal consideration.
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Image: Texas State Capitol, Austin, in the 1870s. Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photographs, Southern Methodist University, Central University Libraries, DeGolyer Library.
More Photo Mysteries Uncovered
The new issue of Civil War Times features a neat bit of detective work by Rick Eiserman, who discovered the likely photographer behind the famous images of the Texas Brigade in its winter quarters near Dumfries, Virginia, in the winter of 1861-62. Eiserman came upon the critical reference while doing more generalized research on the Texas Brigade, in the papers of two Galveston soldiers, William and Charles Schadt:
The Schadts wrote several letters from their Dumfries encampment at Camp Wigfall during 1861-62. I was halfway through an April 2, 1862, letter from William when the words seemed to jump off the page: “When we were in winter quarters Tom Blessing in our company had some dauguean [sic] fixings send [sic] to him and he went to work taking pictures in [sic] we have had a picture taken of the mess you can see it by calling on Mr. Waters or F. Hitchcock either of them will let you have one to take a copy of if you want it.”
My heart started racing as I read and reread that letter. After so many hours of searching specifically for the identity of the photographer, I’d found what I wanted when I wasn’t really anticipating it. The Dumfries photographer had actually been a soldier in the Texas Brigade. But who was this man who had obtained “dauguean fixings,” and how did he know what to do with them?
It turns out that Solomon Thomas “Tom” Blessing, who did indeed serve with William Schadt in Company L, was one of three brothers who worked as professional photographers before and after the war. Between the three of them, they owned or operated studios in New Orleans, Houston and Galveston. Clearly he had the knowledge and skills to take the photographs.
This is good stuff, made better for me by the local connection of the photographer, and the archival source being the incomparable Galveston and Texas History Center at Rosenberg Library here. The Blessings were prolific photographers in the years after the war.
Props as well to Craig Swain, who has his own photographic detective work highlighted in the same issue, along with a feature article on the Union’s 4.5-inch rifle, appropriately dubbed the “Yankee Super Gun.”
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Images: At top, a photo believed to have been taken by Pvt. Tom Blessing of Galveston, Texas, of fellow members of Co. L of the 1st Texas Infantry. Left to right, as identified by Rick Eiserman: Pvt. Charles McCarty, Pvt. Joseph Nagle, Sgt. James Southwick, and Pvt. James Nagle. Photo via Austin History Center, Austin Public Library.
Looking for Buster Kilrain’s Grave
Is Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels the most influential Civil War novel since Gone with the Wind? Sure seems like it must be. Like GwtW, it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction; like GwtW, its was made into a huge, sweeping screen spectacle. (Though Gettysburg never approached the critical or commercial success of its predecessor.) Virtually everyone, it seems, has read it; almost single-handed, it’s elevated Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain into the upper echelon of popular heroes of the battle.
So here’s a question — how has the success of The Killer Angels shaped perceptions of the battle and the war for the public, for better or worse? What has it done well, and what badly?
Or is there another novel we should be talking about here?
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Living Talismans of a Mythic Past
A recent news item out of Tarrant, Alabama highlights a man named Tyus Denney, honored as a “Real Son” of the Confederacy, meaning that his father was actually a Confederate veteran. (The UDC has a similar designation for “Real Daughters,” and the Sons of Union Veterans also has a “Real Sons” recognition.) Such people are interesting to me because they demonstrate how close the Civil War actually is to us in terms of the human life span. As the comedian Louis C.K. said on Leno a while back, in reference to the times that’s passed since emancipation, “that’s two 70-year-old ladies livin’ and dyin’, back-to-back.” His arithmetic is off, but the point remains: it wasn’t really all that long ago.
“My daddy was 80 when I come in this world,” said Denney at his home in Tarrant, where he keeps 10 beehives in the backyard to harvest honey. “I was 13 years old when he died. He never did talk about the Civil War. He never said nothing about it.”
But his father, Thomas Jefferson Denney, is heavily documented as having fought in the Civil War, as part of Company H in the 31st Alabama Infantry regiment. He was captured by Union forces on June 15, 1864 near Marietta, Ga., and held prisoner at Rock Island Barracks, Illinois, where he signed an oath of allegiance to the United States upon his release on June 18, 1865.
That makes Tyus Denney one of the last living “real sons” of Confederate veterans, according to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, an organization made up mostly of descendants several generations further removed from their Confederate ancestors. Denney’s sister, Vivian Smith, 88, of Cullman, is one of the last living “real daughters” of Confederate veterans. . . .
In 1986, the Sons of Confederate Veterans made Denney a lifetime member, not required to pay dues. He sometimes goes to Civil War reenactments.
“I just watch,” he said. “I don’t know nothing about the war.”
I mean no disrespect to Mr. Denney, but his example highlights a fundamental conceit of heritage groups (of all stripes), that linear descent from people who lived through historic events imparts a particular wisdom or understanding of those events in people living today. It doesn’t, but it does seem to make people believe they speak with authority on all sorts of things they haven’t the foggiest clue about. I once saw a comment on a message board, seething with righteous indignation, to the effect that neither Robert or Mary Custis Lee ever owned or oversaw slaves; the commenter asserted as his authority the fact that he held a life membership in the SCV.
Unlike that fool, Tyus Denney at least has the candor and self-awareness to acknowledge what he knows and what he doesn’t.
Some Civil War soldiers wrote letters and diaries that have survived down to the present; most did not. Some Civil War soldiers wrote memoirs decades later about their experiences in the war; most did not. Many veterans passed on stories about the war to their children and grandchildren, that have filtered down (with changes unknown) through the generations to the present. All of these things can, in one way or another, shape our understanding if these mens’ experiences as individuals. But even in the best case, they tell us very little about events outside that man’s observation, they way he wanted others to understand them.
But more generally, the mere fact of being kin to a Civil War soldier doesn’t impart any particular wisdom or insight into that conflict. It’s an accident of birth, and conveys no special knowledge or understanding of the past. What intrinsic commodity, exactly, do men like Mr. Denney convey to modern Americans by virtue of their (and their fathers’) longevity? What do we know or understand or believe about the war that we would not, were they not here? How does simple ancestry weigh on the scale against academic study of the conflict when it comes to insight and knowledge? Does direct descent from a Confederate veteran, whom one never knew, impart a fuller understanding of the period that collateral descent from the same man would?
Or are men like Mr. Denny only talismans, valued as living links to a past that is as much imagined as it is recorded?
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Image: Parole document of 15-year-old Private Thomas Denny, 31st Alabama Infantry, Rock Island Barracks, June 18, 1865. Via Footnote.
USCT Burials Marked in Wilmington
A couple of my readers have pointed me to news stories on Thursday’s dedication of a new historical marker outside the Wilmington, North Carolina National Cemetery. It’s believed that around 500 officers and enlisted men from USCT regiments who died during the Wilmington campaign are buried there, many in unmarked graves. The 4thU.S. Colored Infantry, profiled in the previous post, served in the campaign and it is thought that some of its members are interred at the site.
In a ceremony organized by the city’s Commission on African-American History, Mayor Saffo presented a special certificate of appreciation to Fred Johnson, a local Civil War re-enactor who had researched the story of the black soldiers buried in Wilmington.
Johnson and retired Lt. Col. James C. Braye had organized a lobbying campaign to have the marker erected by the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources.
“Oh, what a morning!” shouted Johnson, wearing the uniform of a Civil War-era artillery sergeant.
He thanked Chris Fonvielle, a historian with the University of North Carolina Wilmington who serves on the state committee that approves new highway markers. Fonvielle had been a strong advocate for the project, Johnson said.
Spectators included both re-enactors of U.S. Colored Troops in Union blue and members of Cape Fear Chapter No. 3 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, many of whom dressed in black as hoop-skirted Civil War widows.
The re-enactors gave a loud “Huzzah!” as Saffo handed the certificate to Johnson.
Thanks for the heads-up on the story, folks.
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First Sergeant Henry, Is that You?
You’ve seen this picture a hundred times.
It appears in almost every book and article about African Americans serving in the Union Army, and on blogs dedicated to the subject. I’ve even used it here, myself. It’s an image of Company E, 4th U.S. Colored Infantry. I’d always guessed that this image was taken early in the 4th’s history, perhaps during its training phase; the uniforms and equipment (including polished shoulder scales) seemed too pristine, too precisely-placed (below). These are, I decided, garrisoned soldiers, not men who’ve been spending their time recently on the march or living in the field.
My reasoning was right, but my conclusion about the date was wrong. The image was not made during the 4th USCT’s working-up period. On the upper edge of the full image, available from the Library of Congress, the notation is scratched on the glass plate negative reads, “Co E 4th US Col’d Troops Fort Lincoln 11-17-65. WMS [William Morris Smith, the photographer].”:
It’s a postwar image, taken seven months after Appomattox. So they are garrisoned troops, well rested, in fresh uniforms and accoutrements. But they’re probably also all combat veterans, of hard-fought actions at Petersburg, Chaffin’s Farm/New Market Heights, and Fort Fisher. These men are not green recruits; they’re veterans, men who’ve seen some of the hardest fighting in the east in the last year of the conflict.
I had always guessed this image was a detachment of Co. E; in fact, it may be all of the enlisted men in Company E as it was at the end of the war.
We were discussing this image the other day at Coates’ blog, and I wondered if it was possible to identify any of the men in the image. There are twenty-seven men visible in the image; at least six of them are non-commissioned officers. It may be impossible to identify the others, but there should have been only a single First Sergeant on the company roster in November 1865; can he be identified?
It’s actually a straightforward, two-step process. First, the NPS Soldiers & Sailors System database allows users to search by regiment, and pull up names of officers and enlisted men assigned to it. Helpfully, the database includes each soldier’s initial and final rank, so it’s a simple matter to identify a few likely candidates. Second, cross-check those men’s compiled service records via Footnote, to confirm each individual’s duty assignment and dates in rank. Using this method, it was quickly determined that in November 1865, the First Sergeant of Co. E, 4th USCT was First Sergeant Harry Henry. You can read his service record here, via Footnote (5.2MB PDF).
Locating a likely match in the NPS oldiers & Sailors System.
Harry Henry was born about 1842 on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. He was likely born free; he first appears in the 1850 U.S. Census, living with his father Jacob, a sawyer, and his wife, Mary, in or near Cambridge in Dorchester County. Harry was the third of at least six siblings; the others were Jane, born c. 1834; Jacob (Jr.), born c. 1838; William, born c. 1842; John, born c. 1845, and Ann, born c. 1848. At the time of the census, neither Jacob nor Mary could read or write, but Jacob held title to land valued at $100.
The Jacob and Mary Henry family in the 1850 U.S. Census.
By the time of the 1860 U.S. Census, most of the older children were no longer part of the household, but Harry, age 19, was still living with his parents and, like his father, earning his living as a sawyer. Ann, now aged 13, lived with them as well. As with the earlier census, none of the adults — now including Harry — were recorded as being able to read or write.
Harry Henry enlisted in Company E of the 4th U.S. Colored Infantry at Baltimore on July 28, 1863, a few weeks after recruitment for the USCTs began. He enlisted for a term of three years. At the time he gave his age as 21 years, his height as five-foot-seven, with a “black” complexion, black eyes and curly hair. His occupation was listed as “farmer.” It appears that on that same day Harry’s older brothers, Jacob and William, enlisted in the same company. Jacob would be wounded at New Market Heights on September 29, 1864, but eventually return to duty. Jacob was apparently a crack shot, as he spent much of his enlistment on detached service, away from the regiment, with a sharpshooters’ unit. Both Jacob and William would survive the war and, with Harry, muster out of the 4th USCT as a Sergeant and Corporal respectively, in May 1866.
Henry was appointed Corporal at the time of his enlistment, but his service record carries few notations that give additional details of his service for his first year in the army. There are no notices of pay stoppage for lost gear, for example (a common entry for enlisted troops), nor notation of illness or injury. Beginning in July 1864, his pay records carry the notation, “free on or before April 19, 1861,” reflecting the army’s agreement to pay black soldiers the same as white, and to award the difference in back pay to those men who had been free before the outbreak of the war.
Sgt. Maj. Christian Fleetwood saves the 4th USCT’s colors at New Market Heights, September 29, 1864. Harry Henry’s brother Jacob was wounded in that action, and Co. E’s First Sergeant, Isaac Harroll, was killed. Image: “Field of Honor “by Joseph Umble, © County of Henrico, Virginia. Via The Sable Arm blog.
Company E’s original First Sergeant, Isaac Harroll, was killed at Chaffin’s Farm/New Market Heights on September 29, 1864, the same day Jacob Henry was wounded. Four other men of the 4th U.S. Colored Infantry, including Sergeant Major Christian Fleetwood, would earn Medals of Honor in that action.The 4th took terrific casualties that day — 97 dead, 137 wounded and 14 missing.
Corporal Harry Henry was promoted to take Harroll’s place as First Sergeant of the company two weeks after the action, on October 14. He would remain First Sergeant of Company E for the remainder of the regiment’s time in service, including in November 1865 (right) when the famous photo was taken. There are few further notations describing his service through the end of the war; he mustered out with the regiment on May 4, 1866 in Washington, D.C.
I’ve found few solid leads on Harry Henry’s life after the war. There was a Harry Henry of about the right age living in Snow Hill, Maryland — about 40 miles from where the sawyer’s son Harry Henry had grown up — at the time of the 1900 U.S. Census. That later Harry Henry was married to a Sally M. Henry, age 51, with the notation that they’d been married for 35 years. It’s not certain, though, that these two Harry Henrys were in fact the same man. After 1900, the trail grows cold, and I really don’t know with certainty what became of Harry Henry after his discharge in 1866.
So that’s the circumstantial case for the man in the photo being Harry Henry. Does the photo itself yield any clues? Yes, it does.
Looking at the overall image, the First Sergeant at first appears substantially taller than the other soldiers. But that could be a trick of perspective; he’s also closer to the camera than any of the others. Fortunately, he holds in his hands a tool we can use to estimate his height, what appears to be a U.S. M1840 Non-commissioned officer’s sword. The M1840 had a blade variously described as being between 31 and 31.5 inches long; because he’s holding it close to the vertical, we can use that blade as a rough scale to determine the First Sergeant’s height.
At left, a six-foot scale has been aligned and adjusted to match the blade on the sword. (The left side of the scale is marked in inches, the right in feet.) At right, that same scale has been moved to align with the approximate location of the bottom of the man’s heel. The scale suggests the man’s overall height at around five-foot-six, very close to Henry’s recorded height of five-foot-seven. While this estimate is only approximate — neither the bottom of the man’s foot not the top of his head are visible — it’s very consistent with the man in the image being Harry Henry.
Can we definitively prove that the First Sergeant in the famous photo is Harry Henry? No. But both the documentary record and careful analysis of the photo suggest strongly that it is.
If anyone out there has additional information on Harry Henry, either his service with the 4th USCT or his life afterwards, I’d love to know it.
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Frederick Douglass on Decoration Day, 1871
On Decoration Day, 1871, Frederick Douglass gave the following address at the monument to the Unknown Dead of the Civil War at Arlington National Cemetery. It is a short speech, but one of the best of its type I’ve ever encountered. I’ve posted it before, but it think it’s something worth re-reading and contemplating every Memorial Day.
The Unknown Loyal Dead
Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, on Decoration Day, May 30, 1871Friends and Fellow Citizens:
Tarry here for a moment. My words shall be few and simple. The solemn rites of this hour and place call for no lengthened speech. There is, in the very air of this resting-ground of the unknown dead a silent, subtle and all-pervading eloquence, far more touching, impressive, and thrilling than living lips have ever uttered. Into the measureless depths of every loyal soul it is now whispering lessons of all that is precious, priceless, holiest, and most enduring in human existence.
Dark and sad will be the hour to this nation when it forgets to pay grateful homage to its greatest benefactors. The offering we bring to-day is due alike to the patriot soldiers dead and their noble comrades who still live; for, whether living or dead, whether in time or eternity, the loyal soldiers who imperiled all for country and freedom are one and inseparable.
Those unknown heroes whose whitened bones have been piously gathered here, and whose green graves we now strew with sweet and beautiful flowers, choice emblems alike of pure hearts and brave spirits, reached, in their glorious career that last highest point of nobleness beyond which human power cannot go. They died for their country.
No loftier tribute can be paid to the most illustrious of all the benefactors of mankind than we pay to these unrecognized soldiers when we write above their graves this shining epitaph.
When the dark and vengeful spirit of slavery, always ambitious, preferring to rule in hell than to serve in heaven, fired the Southern heart and stirred all the malign elements of discord, when our great Republic, the hope of freedom and self-government throughout the world, had reached the point of supreme peril, when the Union of these states was torn and rent asunder at the center, and the armies of a gigantic rebellion came forth with broad blades and bloody hands to destroy the very foundations of American society, the unknown braves who flung themselves into the yawning chasm, where cannon roared and bullets whistled, fought and fell. They died for their country.
We are sometimes asked, in the name of patriotism, to forget the merits of this fearful struggle, and to remember with equal admiration those who struck at the nation’s life and those who struck to save it, those who fought for slavery and those who fought for liberty and justice.
I am no minister of malice. I would not strike the fallen. I would not repel the repentant; but may my “right hand forget her cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,” if I forget the difference between the parties to hat terrible, protracted, and bloody conflict.
If we ought to forget a war which has filled our land with widows and orphans; which has made stumps of men of the very flower of our youth; which has sent them on the journey of life armless, legless, maimed and mutilated; which has piled up a debt heavier than a mountain of gold, swept uncounted thousands of men into bloody graves and planted agony at a million hearthstones — I say, if this war is to be forgotten, I ask, in the name of all things sacred, what shall men remember?
The essence and significance of our devotions here to-day are not to be found in the fact that the men whose remains fill these graves were brave in battle. If we met simply to show our sense of bravery, we should find enough on both sides to kindle admiration. In the raging storm of fire and blood, in the fierce torrent of shot and shell, of sword and bayonet, whether on foot or on horse, unflinching courage marked the rebel not less than the loyal soldier.
But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause. We must never forget that victory to the rebellion meant death to the republic. We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation’s destroyers. If today we have a country not boiling in an agony of blood, like France, if now we have a united country, no longer cursed by the hell-black system of human bondage, if the American name is no longer a by-word and a hissing to a mocking earth, if the star-spangled banner floats only over free American citizens in every quarter of the land, and our country has before it a long and glorious career of justice, liberty, and civilization, we are indebted to the unselfish devotion of the noble army who rest in these honored graves all around us.
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Image: Graves of nine unknown Federal soldiers in Pontotoc County, Mississippi. Photo by Flickr user NatalieMaynor, used under Creative Commons license. Text of Douglass speech from Philip S. Foner and Yuval Taylor, Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings.
NYC Project IDs More than 4,000 Civil War Graves
This seems like a big thing, and a good one. From the Associated Press:
Clarence McKenzie, a local boy fatally wounded in an accidental shooting in Maryland, was buried June 14, 1861, two months after the Union garrison at Fort Sumter surrendered to Confederate forces. He was followed to the grave 12 days later by Adolph Vincens, a 23-year-old London-born jeweler who was the first Civil War battle casualty buried at Green-Wood.
By the time the war ended four years later, about 200 other soldiers and sailors who died in the Civil War were buried at Green-Wood, established in 1838 in what was then a rural section of Brooklyn. In the decades after the war, thousands of others would join their comrades – and even some of their one-time enemies – at the historic cemetery.
Today, the 478-acre expanse of greenery and statuary covering the cemetery’s rolling hills is believed to be the final resting place of about 8,000 Civil War veterans.
A team of volunteers and Green-Wood staff has spent nearly a decade trying to identify all those graves. When the project began in September 2002, cemetery officials figured they had, at most, 500 veterans of the nation’s bloodiest war buried here.
Using the cemetery’s own burial records, plus government, military and privately owned documents available online, Green-Wood’s project has identified the graves of about 4,600 Civil War veterans. Green-Wood historian Jeffrey Richman estimates 3,000 to 4,000 more are scattered among the cemetery’s more than 560,000 total interments.
The Civil War dead buried at Green-Wood include unknown privates and famous officers, buglers and Medal of Honor recipients, Yankees from Maine to Iowa, fathers, sons and brothers, and even 75 Confederates, including two generals. None of the original gravestones for the Confederates gave any indication they had fought for the South, an intentional omission being rectified by the installation of new granite markers provided by Veterans Affairs.
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Image: In this March 2, 2011 photo, headstones from the Veterans Administration are ready to be installed on the graves of Civil War veterans who had no markers at Green-Wood Cemetery in the Brooklyn borough of New York. A project at the cemetery hopes to identify the nearly 8,000 Civil War soldiers buried beneath the green expanse in the New York City outer borough. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Dead Confederates, A Civil War Era Blog 
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