peaceful transfer

Posted on January 1, 2023 by SUMPTER

The South had its Fire-Eaters, the North had John A. Dix. While briefly serving as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury for a time before Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration, John Dix sent a telegram to Treasury agents in New Orleans ordering them to shoot on the spot anyone who tried to pull down the United States flag. The telegram never made it to the agents, but the northern press publicized the contents, which fired up Northerners.

It was more peaceful at the state capitol in Albany nearly twelve years later when General Dix was inaugurated governor of New York.

From the January 18, 1873 issue of Harper’s Weekly:

new governor in old fighting clothes

GOVERNOR JOHN A. DIX.

GENERAL JOHN A. Dix, with whose long and eminent career in the civil and military service of the country every reader is familiar, was on the first day of the new year inaugurated as Governor of the Empire State. The ceremonies on this occasion were simple, brief, and impressive. There was very little display, and nothing in the general aspect of the capital to indicate that the Chief Magistrate of five millions of people had given place to his successor, and that a powerful political party had been supplanted by another in the control of the State government.

The retiring Governor entered the Assembly room with General Dix on his arm. The staff of each in full uniform followed, arm in arm. In this order the party walked up the middle aisle until the space in front of the clerk’s desk was reached, when they separated, General Dix going to the platform behind the clerk’s desk by the left, and Governor HOFFMAN by the right. The staff officers, twenty-eight in number, ranged themselves in a semicircle in front of the desk, and when, after a moment, the slight bustle which had attended the entrance had subsided, Governor HOFFMAN addressed General Dix in a few well-chosen words, to which the General made a brief reply, alluding only in general terms to political affairs. The oath of office was then administered, and the ceremony of installation, which had lasted scarcely twenty minutes, was concluded.

Governor Dix, of whom we give a portrait on our first page, enters upon his term of office with the full confidence of the people that he will, to the best of his ability, carry out the policy of reform so emphatically indorsed at the late election.

John A. Dix had a full and varied career, which began as a twelve year old soldier in the War of 1812. From the August 2, 1862 issue of Harper’s Weekly at Son of the South:

MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN A. DIX.
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN A. Dix, whose portrait we give on page 485, was born in Boscawen, New Hampshire, July 24, 1798. His fattier was the late Colonel Timothy Dix, whose services and death in the last war with Great Britain are matters of history.
In December, 1812, young Dix was appointed’ to a cadetship at the West Point Military Academy; but he never went as pupil to that institution. His father was then in the army, and being stationed in Baltimore, sent for his son, who joined him there, and very soon (March, 1813) received the commission of Ensign, and marched with his father’s command to Sackett’s Harbor, the youngest officer in the American army.
In June, 1813, he was appointed Acting-Adjutant of Major Timothy Upham’s independent battalion of nine companies at Sackett’s Harbor. He accompanied his father in the expedition down the St. Lawrence, and was with him when he died on board one of the transports near French Mills, in November, 1813, after the battle of Chrystler’s Fields. He was then transferred from the infantry to the artillery, and attached to the staff of Colonel Walbach. At the close of the war he remained in the army, part of the time on garrison duty at various stations, from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Fort Washington and Old Point Comfort, Virginia, and six years as aid-de-camp to Major-General Brown while he was Commander-in-Chief of the army. He finally left the service in 1828.
He read law with William Wirt, then United States Attorney-General, was admitted to the New York bar in 1828, and afterward to the United States bar in Washington.
1849. He was Chairman of the Committee on Commerce, and an active member of the Committee on Military affairs. He was the author of the warehousing system as it was adopted by Congress.
In 1826 he married the adopted daughter of the Hon. John J. Morgan, of New York, by whom he has had four sons and two daughters.
From 1828 to 1831 he practiced law in Cooperstown, New York. In 1831, on being appointed Adjutant-General of the State, he removed to Albany. In 1833 he was chosen Secretary of State and Regent of the University.
In 1841 and 1812 [1842?] General Dix was a member of the New York Assembly from Albany County, and took an active and influential part in the most important legislative measures of that period—such as the liquidation of the State debt by taxation, and the establishment of single Congressional Districts.
On the election of Silas Wright as Governor of New York General Dix was chosen to complete his unexpired term of five years in the United States Senate, and took his seat in that body January 27, 1845, where he remained until March 4, 1849. He was Chairman of the Committee on Commerce, and an active member of the Committee on Military affairs. He was the author of the warehousing system as it was adopted by Congress.
General Dix acted with that portion of the New York Democracy known as “the Free-Soil Democracy” in 1848-’49, and was their candidate for Governor in 1848. But when the delegation of New York became legitimately connected with the nomination of General Pierce for the Presidency in 1852, General Dix sustained that nomination.
On the election of General Pierce to the Presidency he first selected General Dix for his Secretary of State. But, as is well known, the leaders of the Southern democracy, of the Mason and Slidell school, protested so violently against his appointment that it was never made. The same influence prevented his appointment as Minister to France, which had been offered to him as an inducement for him to accept for a while the local office of Assistant-Treasurer of the United States in the city of New York. On the appointment of Mr. John Y. Mason, of Virginia, to the French embassy Mr. Dix resigned the office of Assistant-Treasurer, and withdrew almost wholly from politics.
Early in 1859 enormous defalcations having been discovered in the New York City Post-office, and the defaulting Postmaster having absconded, President Buchanan appointed General Dix to that office, and urged its acceptance on the ground that the public interests required the appointment of some man of the highest character and reputation for integrity and administrative ability. Mr. Dix yielded to these representations, and accepted the office. In January, 1861, the treachery and dishonesty of Floyd, Cobb, & Co., of the first Buchanan Cabinet, having reached their climax, and ended in the withdrawal or flight of those traitors from Washington, and the financial embarrassments of the Government requiring the appointment of a Secretary of the Treasury in whose probity, patriotism, skill, and efficiency the whole country could and would confide, General Dix was called to that high office, and entered on its duties January 15, 1861.
Early in 1859 enormous defalcations having been discovered in the New York City Post-office, and the defaulting Postmaster having absconded, President Buchanan appointed General Dix to that office, and urged its acceptance on the ground that the public interests required the appointment of some man of the highest character and reputation for integrity and administrative ability. Mr. Dix yielded to these representations, and accepted the office. In January, 1861, the treachery and dishonesty of Floyd, Cobb, & Co., of the first Buchanan Cabinet, having reached their climax, and ended in the withdrawal or flight of those traitors from Washington, and the financial embarrassments of the Government requiring the appointment of a Secretary of the Treasury in whose probity, patriotism, skill, and efficiency the whole country could and would confide, General Dix was called to that high office, and entered on its duties January 15, 1861.
On the 18th January, 1861, three days after General Dix took charge of the Treasury Department, he sent a special agent to New Orleans and Mobile for the purpose of saving the revenue vessels at those ports from seizure by the rebels. The most valuable of these vessels, the Robert McClelland, at New Orleans, was commanded by Captain John G. Breshwood, with S. B. Caldwell as his lieutenant. Breshwood refused to obey the orders of General Dix’s agent, Mr. Jones; and on being informed of this refusal, the Secretary telegraphed as follows; “If any man pulls down the American flag, shoot him on the spot!”
This dispatch, evidently thrown off fervido animo, and with a pen too hasty to pause for blot or literal correction, was intercepted by the Governor of Alabama, and did not reach Mr. Jones until the joint villainy of Captain Breshwood and the authorities of Louisiana had been consummated by stealing the cutter. It found its way very soon into the newspapers, and it flew over the land like the Highland cross of fire, setting the hearts of the people every where ablaze.
Civil War envelope showing American flag and cannon with message "Shoot the first man that attempts to pull down the American flag" (between 1861 and 1865; LOC - LC-DIG-ppmsca-31705 )

fervent patriotism

In its January 11, 1873 issue Harper’s Weekly noted yet another job John Dix held, at least for a short time:

edited a journal

Conductor Dix

In its January 14, 1873 issue Harper’s Weekly did a historical contrast and compare with a New Year’s Day tradition:

calling tradition

Of course, a lot had changed between 1650 and 1873 for Knickerbockers. In 1664 the English took control of New Amsterdam from the Dutch and renamed it New York. A 1660 map showed the southern tip of the island of Manhattan a few years before the English took over.

left is southerly

You can read more about the inauguration in The January 2, 1873 issue of New York Herald, page 5 at the Library of Congress. Apparently outgoing Governor John T. Hoffman was very popular with the citizens of Albany, but he was back in New York City on the evening of January 1st. According to the January 1, 1873 issue of The New York Herald, New Year’s Day was “Gotham’s Favorite Festival” and included the social calls: “The custom of making calls on this day has already been alluded to. It is a very commendable social practice and receives its fullest development in New York. The other cities of the Union copied it from us, and now the thing is observed almost everywhere throughout the country. In spite of some abuses which have arisen since it was originated, and which have prejudiced many worthy people against it, the custom is hardly ever likely to die out. It has a powerful hold on the social instincts of Americans, and will be apt to flourish for all time. They have something similar in Paris, but it is of a less muscular character than our own. …”
From the Library of Congress: Civil War envelope; Currier & Ives’ greeting c.1876; From the Internet Archive: the November 1842 issue of The Northern Light. The 1660 Castello Plan is from Wikimedia Commons. “The text at the top of the image states: “Image of the city Amsterdam in New Netherland”.
The 1873 Harper’s Weekly content is from Hathi Trust
Happy new year (New York : Published by Currier & Ives, c1876.; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2002695831/)

hope it is a good one

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Postbellum Politics, The Election of 1872, Veterans | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

pleasant surprise

Posted on December 25, 2022 by SUMPTER

Sir Isaac Newton isn’t usually the first thing that comes to my mind when I think about Christmas.

From The Daily Phoenix, Columbia, South Carolina, December 25, 1872:

merrier in London

Christmas.

The learned have long been divided in opinion as to the precise day of the nativity of the Saviour. But from the earliest ages of the church, the 25th of December has been fixed upon. Sir Isaac Newton, in his commentary on the prophecies of Daniel, accounts for the choice of this day, the winter solstice, by showing that not only the Feast of the Nativity, but others, were originally fixed at cardinal points of the year; and that the first Christian calendars having been so arranged by mathematicians, at pleasure, without any ground in tradition, the Christians afterwards adopted what they thus found in the calendars. They were content so long as a fixed time of commemoration was solemnly appointed.

lord of misrule

When the world was younger, a warmer, or at any rate, a more boisterous hospitality, marked the recurrence of the day of the Nativity, than is usual now. Most of the old customs, such as the wassail-bowl, the yule-clog and the lord of misrule, with attendant sports and frolics, are now discontinued, and almost forgotten. Those pious songs, the Christmas carols, of which, according to Bishop Taylor, the earliest was the “Gloria in Excelsis,” the hymn sung by the angels to the shepherds at our Lord’s Nativity, are now almost out of vogue. They were originally festal chansons for enlivening the merriments of the Christmas celebrity. They were considered indispensable to the escort of the soused boar’s head, which was the first dish borne up to the principal table in the great hall. After undergoing many changes, and becoming, for a time, austere, under Puritan rule and influence, we have known them in our day, principally through the entertaining stories, appropriate to Christmas times, of the late Charles Dickens.

“Serving up the Boar’s Heat at Queen’s College, Oxford, On Christmas Day.”

These old customs have passed away, but the old feeling of relaxation from care at this season survives them. Anxieties are dismissed for a time, as all feel that

“Christmas comes but once a year,
And, when it comes, it brings good cheer.”

While, then, they give way to their social feelings, and celebrate the day in becoming style, with roast turkey on their tables, and bowls of egg-nog in the hall, they should not forget the claims of those who are in less favorable circumstances, to whom Christmas is made sad by their exclusion from its festivities. Gaunt hunger is at many a threshold in our city today, and the tattered garments and open hovels of the destitute are but a poor protection against the inclement season. They need food, fuel, clothing, and other comforts, and it becomes those whose means enable them to minister to such pressing wants, not to withhold the helping hand. Whoever is happy himself should wish to make others happy. We cannot help thinking that those who mingle a judicious, hearty and unobtrusive charity with their Christmas enjoyments, will find them better sweetened and more highly flavored to their taste. In the wish that all, the poor and sad, as well as the rich and cheerful, may have unalloyed happiness in their hearts, homes and associations, we wish them a merry Christmas, and many returns of it, brightening each time with higher enjoyments, purer hopes and tenderer charities.

After a couple short articles, the Daily Phoenix next editorialized about General William T. Sherman’s testimony regarding the burning of Columbia on February 17, 1865.

Columbia burns

The Burning of Columbia.

General Sherman

Most of our city readers have not yet been able to recover from the horrors of that dreadful night when Columbia was burnt by the Federal army.They can never forget the atrocities and cruelties which accompanied the vandal act. The city was formally surrendered by the Mayor and Aldermen about 12 or 1 o’clock in the day, and taken regularly under the protection of the Federal commander. He told the mayor and friends who were with him that they need be under no apprehension, and that they and all the citizens might sleep in peace. Gen. Sherman himself, we suppose, slept soundly while the 15th Army Corps “did their work well,” as it seems he knew they would do it. Such was the indignation which this atrocious abuse of the rights of war, the betrayal of pledges, and needless, heartless cruelty caused throughout the civilized world, that it was meanly attempted, by certain writers of fiction, called historians, and by subsidized Congressmen, to saddle the crime upon Gen. Hampton. Nobody believed this but those brutal and vulgar wretches who prefer a lie to the truth always. Now, curiously enough, we have Gen. Sherman himself on the stand, giving his testimony before the American and British Claims Commission in regard to the burning of Columbia. He did not issue orders to do it. Of course not. There was a better way. He had but to let the exasperated army alone, and they would know what to do. They knew that he, too, was exasperated, and divined his feelings only too well. When Sherman was on his way to Columbia, Halleck wrote to him to destroy Charleston and sow it with salt, so that no more nullification and secession should ever grow there again. To this, Sherman, in reply, wrote that Charleston and Columbia would soon be in his hands, and Halleck would have no cause to complain of his treatment of them; that he had the Fifteenth Corps with him, and that corps did their work well; and further, that he (Sherman) would not spare the public buildings at Columbia as he had at Milledgeville. Gen. Sherman admitted, on his examination, that this correspondence was authentic. He stated that he occupied Columbia with the Fifteenth Corps. In reply to the question whether he kept the men in ranks after taking possession of the city, he said “No.”

We grieve for the sin that lies upon the souls of all the lying chroniclers, confessmen [sic, congressmen?] and newspaper writers, in connection with this much mooted affair. All the falsehoods are without avail, for here is the chief actor himself making a a [sic] clean breast of the thing. Bad enough it is to lie, but to do so for a chief who pleads guilty of the charge which they stoutly deny – this must indeed be excruciating to their feelings.

Columbia from the capitol, 1865

Apparently employees of The Daily Phoenix had a relaxing Christmas. The Library of Congress doesn’t have a copy of the paper for the 26th, presumably because no one was working on the 25th. According to the December 27th edition, the staff provided sort of a surprise party to go, but page 2 began with an article about the only vice-president of the Confederate States of America. Alexander H. Stephens gave a rather hopeful speech in Atlanta. The Phoenix thought it was easier to be hopeful in prosperous Georgia than in hellish South Carolina.

From the December 27, 1872 issue of The Daily Phoenix, Columbia, South Carolina:

Speech of Hon. Alexander H. Stephens – Hopeful Views.

Hon. A.H. Stephens, of Georgia, has long been conspicuous for his talents and eloquence, his services and patriotism. He is a great favorite in our sister State, and faithfully returns the fondness the people feel for him. These relations of confidence and regard have marked those intervals in his life when he has not filled office, as well as the periods when he has been a chosen representative of the State. The people of Georgia early discovered his merits, and confidingly bestowed upon him their highest honors. The personal esteem felt for him is even greater than the political favor which has so often been shown him. The confidence in his integrity, capacity and experience, enforced and supplemented by personal regard, extends beyond the bounds of his State, as was signally shown when he was elected Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy, although it was well known that he did not originally favor secession as a remedy. Theoretically he did not approve of that step, but once it was taken and identified with the cause of the South, his heart yearned for its success, freighted, as it was, with many precious hopes. He regarded the success of the Southern movement as the best guarantee of the liberties of the continent. In his judgment the Southern cause included and involved the maintenance of local self-government and the principles of the rights of the States, upon which the fabric of American free institutions rested.

hopeful in Atlanta

Since the close of the war, Mr. Stephens has lived in retirement, but not in inactivity. The victim of weak health and chronic disorders of body, his mind is ever active and his studies incessant. The old cause of constitutional, well regulated liberty is ever present to his thoughts, and he is a most attentive observer of passing events. He has employed his pen recently with fine effect in presenting and describing the true issues of the war, and in the preparation of valuable literary and historical works. For a year past he has been the political editor of the Atlanta Sun, and took ground in the late canvass against the support of Horace Greeley as the compromise candidate between the North and South. In this he differed from the larger portion of the people of the South and of Georgia, but it was an honest difference, and rested, on both sides, on sincere convictions. In this State, all except some of the new population and the colored people, very cordially accepted Mr. Greeley, as both honest and capable, and embodying and entertaining the true spirit of conciliation. Perhaps our condition somewhat influenced our views. We naturally crave to be delivered from the body of death to which we are tied. We catch at every straw, we strain our eyes toward every prospect of deliverance from a set of thieves who are stealing our substance, and from the load of ignorance which is fast crushing the life out of us. For his own high merits, for the good that he promised us, and which we hoped his election would bring to us and the whole country, we warmly supported Mr. Greeley’s claims to the Presidency, but Mr. Stephens thought differently and stood aloof.

Upon the invitation of his friends in Atlanta, Mr. Stephens, a few days ago, delivered a conversational address in that city, upon the issues of the day and his personal relations to them. Having elucidated these elaborately and satisfactorily, he presented some of the grounds upon which he bases his hopes for a better prospect in future. They show the buoyancy and elasticity of his nature, and perhaps the prescience of his mind. We confess that we cannot see as bright a light or as fine a prospect before the country as Mr. Stephens does; but he is in prosperous Georgia, where the people govern themselves, and we are in downtrodden South Carolina, where the public debt has been trebled in four years; where our annual current State expenses have been increased more than sevenfold; where taxes have nearly reached the point of confiscation; where the Treasury is empty; where all public institutions have gone to decay, and the high prizes of talent and public service are sold like any other commodity in market, at the highest price. Around and all along the borders of this State might be appropriately placed the inscription which Dante saw over the gate of hell:

“Per me si va nella citta dolente;
Per me si va ne l’etterno dolore;
Per me si va tra in perduta gente;
Lasciate ogni speianza, voi ch’entrate.”
[Through me is the way into the doleful city;
Through me the way into tho eternal pain;
Through me the way among the people lost;
Leave all hope, ye that enter.]

We have read Mr. Stephens’ speech with interest and pleasure. In another place, we extract the concluding part, in which the duty and mission of the Democratic party are admirably delineated, and a hopeful view taken of the future of the whole country.

Supri-sing.

usquebaugh on hand?

We have heard of surprise parties, and on Christmas day experienced one of the pleasantest that can be imagined. It was a little past high noon, when we heard a thundering noise on the staircase and much stamping of shoes to get off the snow. We thought some of our numerous boys with their friends had been out gunning, and on their return, were coming in to warm by the fire. The door opened, and in they came. The PHŒNIX father, ever rising from his ashes and always in a flame, but not burnt up, as far as we can see; the PHŒNIX foreman, with his conundrums and quips and cranks and wreathed smiles; the PHŒNIX compositors, who, like Franklin and Horace Greeley, read and understand newspapers they print; the PHŒNIX pressman, who lives below, and is sometimes sooty from much dealing with steam, but keeps a cheerful heart within him all the lime; the clerks of the PHŒNIX, those ready pensmen who know how to indite a billet doux or frame an artistic debtor’s bill, and dun for it in the coolest fashion; the whole fraternity of Faustus, including the old boy himself, who, by some strange paradox, is represented in a printing office by the youngest and smallest boy; together with other clever representatives of the art preservative of other arts, not forgetting polite colored attendant Jim, man of horses and skillful in cork-drawing – well, all of these, and we don’t know how many more, came down on us with their bottles of punch and old usquebaugh, their cakes and fancy things, their new-fashioned inkstands, gold pen and what not. We surrendered at discretion, said our little speech, toasts and sentiments wont round, and all went smoothly as Calnan’s new sled gliding over the snow. We were considerably scared, but are now recovering, and hope to be all right on New Year’s Day. We defy them to scare us again. Just let them try it.

Up north a New York City magazine published some Christmas-related pictures. From the December 28, 1872 and January 4, 1873 issues of Harper’s Weekly:

anticipation

playing

partying

Christmas food security

Project Gutenberg has a copy of OBSERVATIONS upon the PROPHECIES of DANIEL, and the APOCALYPSE of St. JOHN. by Sir Isaac Newton. Here’s the section the Daily Phoenix alluded to:
The times of the Birth and Passion of Christ, with such like niceties, being not material to religion, were little regarded by the Christians of the first age. They who began first to celebrate them, placed them in the cardinal periods of the year; as the annunciation of the Virgin Mary, on the 25th of March, which when Julius Cæsar corrected the Calendar was the vernal Equinox; the feast of John Baptist on the 24th of June, which was the summer Solstice; the feast of St. Michael on Sept. 29, which was the autumnal Equinox; and the birth of Christ on the winter Solstice, Decemb. 25, with the feasts of St. Stephen, St. John and the Innocents, as near it as they could place them. And because the Solstice in time removed from the 25th of December to the 24th, the 23d, the 22d, and so on backwards, hence some in the following centuries placed the birth of Christ on Decemb. 23, and at length on Decemb. 20: and for the same reason they seem to have set the feast of St. Thomas on Decemb. 21, and that of St. Matthew on Sept. 21. So also at the entrance of the Sun into all the signs in the Julian Calendar, they placed the days of other Saints; as the conversion of Paul on Jan. 25, when the Sun entred Aquarius; St. Matthias on Feb. 25, when he entred Pisces; St. Mark on Apr. 25, when he entred Taurus; Corpus Christi on May 26, when he entred Gemini; St. James on July 25, when he entred Cancer; St. Bartholomew on Aug. 24, when he entred Virgo; Simon and Jude on Octob. 28, when he entred Scorpio: and if there were any other remarkable days in the Julian Calendar, they placed the Saints upon them, as St. Barnabas on June 11, where Ovid seems to place the feast of Vesta and Fortuna, and the goddess Matuta; and St. Philip and James on the first of May, a day dedicated both to the Bona Dea, or Magna Mater, and to the goddess Flora, and still celebrated with her rites. All which shews that these days were fixed in the first Christian Calendars by Mathematicians at pleasure, without any ground in tradition; and that the Christians afterwards took up with what they found in the Calendars.
The book uses icons for the signs of the Zodiac.
You can read about Sir Isaac Newton and his legendary gravity epiphany at National Geographic.

Newton statue at Library of Congress

Generals William T. Sherman and Oliver O. Howard testified before the Mixed Commission on British and American Claims. You can read more about it at Project Hathi. The Charleston Daily News commented on Sherman’s testimony in its December 25, 1872 issue (page 1)
Here is the conclusion of Alexander Stephens’ hopeful speech from the December 27, 1872 issue of The Daily Phoenix:

actually 1843

Saviour announced

“the nativity of the Saviour”

Saviour presented

From the Library of Congress: The Daily Phoenix, December 25 and December 27; the Annunciation apparently published in 1883; the birth of Jesus; the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple from 1905’s Scenes from the life of Jesus; Carol M. Highsmith’s 2007 photo of Sir Isaac Newton statue “along the balustrade by the Visitors’ Gallery. Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C.”; the 1865 portrait of General Sherman; portrait of Alexander H. Stephens from Recollections of Alexander H. Stephens : his diary kept when a prisoner at Fort Warren, Boston harbour, 1865, giving incidents and reflections of his prison life and some letters and reminiscences ; the first Christmas card – you can see the colorized original and learn more about it at British (naturally) The Postal Museum, actually from 1843, the three panes represent feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and a family party; Currier & Ives’ graphic greeting;
From Wikimedia Commons: The picture of Father Christmas actually in a wassail bowl from the December 24, 1842 issue of the Illustrated London News; Columbia in ruins, 1865 by George N. Barnard; the presumably soused boar’s head said to be from 1873
From the Son of the South: William Waud’s image of the burning of Columbia, originally published in the April 8, 1865 issue of Harper’s Weekly
From Project Gutenberg: Mr. Fezziwig’s Ball from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol; the lord of misrule from The Book of Christmas
I found the Harper’s Weekly Christmas pictures at Hathi Trust – December 28 1872 and January 4 1873
Merry Christmas (New York : Published by Currier & Ives, 125 Nassau St., [1876])

to you and yours

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, American Culture, American Society, Postbellum Society, The Election of 1872 | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

more or less traditionary

Posted on November 28, 2022 by SUMPTER

downtown Boston

It was becoming a tradition. 150 years ago, for the tenth year in a row, the United States president proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving for a Thursday at the end of November.

“ample civil and religious freedom and equality before the law”

THANKSGIVING DAY 1872
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA – A PROCLAMATION
Whereas the revolution of another year has again brought the time when it is usual to look back upon the past and publicly to thank the Almighty for His mercies and His blessings; and Whereas if any one people has more occasion than another for such thankfulness it is the citizens of the United States, whose Government is their creature, subject to their behests; who have reserved to themselves ample civil and religious freedom and equality before the law; who during the last twelvemonth have enjoyed exemption from any grievous or general calamity, and to whom prosperity in agriculture, manufactures, and commerce has been vouchsafed;
Now, therefore, by these considerations, I recommend that on Thursday, the 28th day of
November next, the people meet in their respective places of worship and there make their
acknowledgments to God for His kindness and bounty.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this 11th day of October, A.D. 1872, and of the Independence of the United States of America the ninety-seventh.
U.S. GRANT

That was on October 11th. On November 9th and 10th the Great Boston Fire of 1872 ravaged about 65 acres of downtown Boston. At least 30 people died, including 12 firefighters; 776 building were destroyed. In its November 30, 1872 Supplement Harper’s Weekly provided some Thanksgiving content, but the main part of the newspaper focused on the Boston fire, at least with its pictures. Here’s a sample.

12 firefighters died

stopping looters

burned district blackened

ruins with Old South Church

birth place burned

From Harper’s Weekly Supplement November 30, 1872:

THE CHEERFUL GIVER.

mite work

That Heaven loves a cheerful giver is a saying as old as the human race; and that a gift is valued by the giver’s heart and not by its amount is beautifully illustrated by the parable of the poor widow’s mite. There is an excellent story of a rich but very stingy old Scotchman who once accidentally laid a guinea in place of a penny in the contribution box as it was passed round the church. He attempted to take it back, but was prevented by the vigilant deacon, who refused to give up anything that was “on the Lord’s plate.” “Weel, weel,” he grunted, as he leaned back in his pew, “I’ll get credit for it in heaven.” “Nae, Jamie,” said his friend the deacon, “ye’ll no get credit in heaven for ony thing but the penny ye thought to gie.”

At this season of the year, when the nation is called upon to offer thanks to Providence for peace, for abundant harvests, for general prosperity in commerce and all the various branches of industry, the poor should be remembered with special tenderness and liberality. We are apt to be spasmodic in our charities. A great disaster, like the fires which desolated Portland, Chicago, and Boston, an earthquake which lays waste a populous city and fills a land with terror, rouses us to extraordinary efforts on behalf of the sufferers. This is right, certainly; but we are very apt to forget that we have the poor with us always, and that hundreds and thousands right about our own doors are constantly suffering from want. The blessed summer-time affords them a respite from the sharper pangs of poverty; but winter brings them all – hunger and cold, sickness and death. Let those to whom Providence has given wealth, whose homes are full of comfort and plenty, think of the poor who have no “Thanksgiving.” Happy the man who is not only thankful for himself, but that he has the means of making others happy!

crying foul

In its Thanksgiving coverage a New York City paper also stressed charity. From the November 29, 1872 issue of The New York Herald (page 4):

Thanksgiving and its Observance.

In the homes of the people and in the churches of the various religious denominations there was yesterday a more general observance of Thanksgiving Day than on any former occasion. As time rolls by the solitary religious holiday which has a national interest becomes invested with more interest in the popular mind, and its associations are hallowed by the memories, gay or sad, which the past has entwined with it. We are naturally inclined to be retrospective, and even the most go-ahead Yankee must sometimes pause in his career to look back with regret over the waste of time. In the bustle of our feverish life there are few opportunities to cultivate those gentle and tender memories which spring up amid time-honored celebrations with their scenes of innocent festivity into which tradition has woven that charm which antiquity alone can give – a feeling difficult to account for, that is yet the very essence of our enjoyment. Like all other human institutions time is exerting its influence over Thanksgiving Day, and people are beginning to associate with it more and more the idea of a festival. The traditionary turkey and the assembled guests enter more into our conceptions of it than the more solemn rites of religion. These, however, are not neglected, though the growth of a social and even a fantastical tendency in the celebration of the day is becoming more marked year by year. Perhaps the most pleasing and humanizing observance of the day is the custom of assembling the poor and wretched in the various charitable institutions of the city and making the day for them one of unusual happiness – a day to be remembered as the sad year advances through its weary round, a cycle of misery, with one recurring, bright joyous day, when the tears of the wretched are dried by the kind, charitable souls who spread an annual feast for the poor. It will be soon by the accounts published elsewhere that the entertainment of poor children was carried out pretty generally. The religious bodies and charitable institutions seemed to vie with each other in the extent to which this feature was carried, and in some instances as many as fifteen hundred poor children sat down to enjoy the substantial fare provided for them by the kindness and thoughtfulness of the more prosperous part of the community. Of all modes of returning thanks to the beneficent Creator for the blessings He has bestowed on the nation and on individuals, this tender charity toward the suffering ones will be most acceptable to Him who loves the poor. Nor can the effect of such reunions as those that mark the celebration of Thanksgiving and bring the wretched into contact with their happier fellow citizens fail to exercise a most healthy influence on the moral tone of those who are most exposed to temptation. It is well that the young ones whose fate has been cast in the midst of suffering and misery and vice should learn that the rich and prosperous sympathize with them and are willing to aid them in the battle of life. And these pleasant and humanizing reunions let in the light of hope on the dark spots of our civilization where else there would be nothing but gloom and despair. We must not estimate the value of the good done by this gathering together of the children of misfortune by the mere physical pleasure which a good dinner affords them, but rather by the moral effect on the children that is exercised by the hope of a brighter future, and the knowledge that in their darkest hour of suffering they will meet sympathy and support from their fellow men if only they will strive to merit it.

On its November 29, 1872 front page, The New York Times mentioned church services and charity. One of the charitable dinners was held at the Union Home and School for the Orphans of Soldiers and Sailors. Church service and possibly some music performed by the children, were also part of the exercises. The “fantasticals,” apparently forerunners of the “maskers” of the early 20th century, were out on the streets of Manhattan, wearing their masks and costumes. The paper reported on “Thanksgiving in England”. Cyrus W. Field gave a banquet at the Buckingham Palace Hotel to celebrate American Thanksgiving Day. Prime Minister William E. Gladstone addressed the gathering.

You can read more about the fire at the Boston Fire Historical Society
I think the cartoon has something to do with the Liberal Republicans and Horace Greeley’s failed attempt to defeat U.S. Grant in the 1872 presidential election.
I got President Grant’s 1872 proclamation at Pilgrim Hall Museum. I saw the Times front page at The New York Times The Complete Front Pages 1851-2008. New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers Inc., 2008. on one of the DVDs; You can view the November 30, 1872 issue Harper’s Weekly article at Hathi Trust
From the Library of Congress: the photo of Boston, after the fire, November 9th & 10th, 1872; Newton Timothy Hartshorn’s portrait of U.S. Grant. Charles H. Crosby was the lithographer;

a NYC market at Thanksgiving time

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, American Culture, Postbellum Society, The Grant Administration | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

game day

Posted on November 24, 2022 by SUMPTER

“CAMP JOHNSON, NEAR WINCHESTER, VIRGINIA-THE FIRST MARYLAND REGIMENT PLAYING FOOT-BALL BEFORE EVENING PARADE.” (1861)

football in 1878

Lately I’ve been in the habit of visiting the Pilgrim Hall Museum as November makes its annual return. This year I checked out Thanksgiving Touchdown, an article that describes the connection between American football and Thanksgiving and even touches on the American Civil War:

“A very crude game of ball-kicking was being played at East Coast colleges, such as Harvard and Yale, in the 1840s or before. Most colleges outlawed the game in the early 1860s – the tensions that eventually led to the Civil War were causing divisions on campus and a game like football, very physical and almost totally without rules, could easily erupt into violence. Perhaps because of that very physicality and flexibility, however, football remained popular with college men.

“After the Civil War, football officially returned to college campuses. The first intercollegiate game was played in 1869 between Princeton and Rutgers. There were 25 players to a side and the ball could be kicked or head-butted – but not carried.Rutgers won that first game 6 to 4; a rematch one week later was won by Princeton, 8 to 0.”

Thanksgiving Day 1876?

In 1876 “Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Princeton and Pennsylvania formed the Intercollegiate Football Association. The Association agreed to use the Harvard rules – and agreed that the two strongest teams would meet each year on Thanksgiving Day in New York City in a game that would determine the championship.” Yale beat Princeton in the 1876 Thanksgiving game. [The Harvard rules included the innovation that players could run with the ball. Harvard got that rule from Canada’s McGill University.]

The Thanksgiving Day championship continued in the 1880s and 1890s. In 1891 Yale and Princeton were back at again. The big game was played on Manhattan Field.

“the full-back does most the kicking”

Page 1 of the 1:00 PM edition of The Evening World Football Extra was full of information about the game and football in general. Yale was heavily favored. The Pulitzer Building was going to flash the game’s result from its dome: blue electric light if Yale won, red if Princeton managed to overcome the odds.

It was a blue light. Even though the game was scoreless at halftime, Yale won 19-0. A later Evening Edition Football Extra provided the final score and included a play-by-play account of the game. Point values were different than today: field goal = 5 points, touchdown = four points, and the kick after touchdown = two points:

touchdown = four points

champions of 1891

Manhattan Field c1901

NY Tribune – November 26, 1891

dome signaled victor

______________________________

In 1860 church services with long sermons were a major part of Thanksgiving Day in the New York City area. The Football Extra noted some changes thirty years on. From The Evening World Football Extra Edition November 26, 1891 page 2:

THE THANKSGIVING OF TO-DAY.

Thanksgiving Day resembles Fourth of July not only in the respect that it comes once a year, but in that it is now, thanks to college football and other regular events of the day, accompanied by a good deal of hurrah.

It is not the Thanksgiving of old that we celebrate generally in these times. There are exercises incident to the day which might prove shocking to some good men and women of earlier generations, who accepted this annually recurring occasion as a sort of extra Sunday. But this would only because of the radical change of custom.

It has not hurt Thanksgiving Day to put dash and sport into its observance. Its conversion into a real red-letter day has nothing of the spirit of irreverence. Only a hopeful, healthful people will care for or indulge in active, blood-stirring sports. And people who are healthy and hopeful are, perforce, thankful, though they may not say it in so many words.

The Thanksgiving of to-day is a broader, more cheerful day than that of our grandfathers. The man who has no family reunion to attend, no family board to sit down to is no longer out of all place for the time being. The diversity of entertainment offered indoor and out has something for everybody, and thankfulness need not in anybody’s breast be drowned out by loneliness or homesickness.

THE GAME OF FOOTBALL.

The Thanksgiving dinners of a great many people will be late to-day because those people insist on staying to the very last kick in the great Yale-Princeton football game. But how appetites will be sharpened even by a spectatorship at that stirring struggle at Manhattan Field, and how enjoyment of the feast will be heightened by the lively flow of the aftertalk based upon the game.

And for the participants? Well, the one side must be inspired by the sense of victory won and championship attained. The other – pshaw! It will be a great game lost, but they will have made it go hard, and they will have a long time before next Thanksgiving in which to prepare for a possible reversal of the result.

Football is a game worthy of any nation’s holidays, as American college boys play it. Brain and brawn both have place in it. It is a game calculated to develop both manliness and muscle. Long may it hold its place on the calendar of sports and long may its exponents live to vent their enthusiasm over the exploits of their successors when their own playing days are over.

The Pilgrim Hall Museum football article from above quoted a Harper’s Weekly piece from 1891 that thought that the new Thanksgiving, at least in New York City, was a big improvement on the old. People could get out and watch a football game instead of being trapped at the family dinner table, listening to an elderly relation recount, once again, the “old story of the roast pig he stole the night before Gettysburg…”

Page 1 of the Football Extra reported that Thanksgiving Day wasn’t entirely feasting and revelry in 1891. A military unit continued a more solemn tradition:

The Sixty-ninth Regiment Veteran Corps gathered at the armory, Third avenue and Seventh street, at 7.45 o’clock, and in accordance with a pretty custom, marched in uniform up through Union Square, where they saluted the statues of Washington and Lincoln and then passed on to the Chapel of the Immaculate Virgin, where the old soldiers humbled themselves in divine service.

down and out

You can read about the 1891 championship game at Frank Hinkey and the 1891 season at Saturday Blitz.

both sides now?

flying wedge?

“Progress”

Just like times past, I got the image of the football game at Camp Johnson from Son of the South. It was originally published in the August 31, 1861 issue of Harper’s Weekly.
From the Library of Congress: the picture of “The first intercollegiate championship football game held in America” it is said to be a print from 1930, so I’m not sure how accurate the uniforms, etc are, and the game is said to have been in Hoboken, NJ – the information does give Thanksgiving Day 1876 as date; The Evening World Football Extra 1:00 PM edition and post-game edition; the photo of Manhattan Field and Harlem River c1901; the November 26, 1891 issue of the New-York Tribune, showing how the football field was set up inside the stadium; the Pulitzer Building, c1909 The Evening World was the evening edition of the New York World and was owned by Joseph Pulitzer; Football & love; the image of the shoppers lined up outside the department store was Illus. in: Puck, v. 58, no. 1497 (1905 Nov. 8), p. 5.; Progress was Illus. in: Puck, v. 48, no. 1243 (1901 Jan. 9), p. 16.
The image of the 1878 football game comes from the December 7, 1878 issue of Harper’s Weekly at Internet Archive. The picture of the injured football play is also at the Internet Archives. Tt was published in the October 31, 1891 issue of Harper’s Weekly, the accompanying commentary seems ambivalent about football injuries. That issue also contains “Team Play in Foot-ball,” an article written by Yale’s coach Walter Camp, “Father of American Football.” The photo of the 1891 undefeated Yale football team comes from Wikipedia. They outscored their opponents by a total of 488 to 0. Also from Wikipedia, the Thanksgiving postcard, circa 1900

game day

Posted in American Culture, American History, Postbellum Society | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

General Meade, R.I.P.

Posted on November 6, 2022 by SUMPTER

“manly modesty”

The day after his Commander in Chief was re-elected United States President, General George Meade died at his Philadelphia home.

From The Chicago Daily Tribune November 8, 1872:

IN MEMORIAM.

hero’s death

Honors to the Late General Meade.

Washington, Nov. 7.—General Sherman has issued a general order, reviewing in a feeling manner the life and services of the late General Meade, and directing General McDowell, at New York, to make all arrangements for the funeral, and directing that at all military posts on that day flags be displayed at half-mast, and minute guns fired, and that the officers wear the usual badge of mourning.

It is understood that either Brigadier General A. H. Terry, now commanding the Department of the South, or E. R. S. Canby, commanding the Department of Columbia, will be appointed Major General, in place of General Meade, deceased.

one last march

General Sherman to-day telegraphed to General McDowell to proceed to Philadelphia, and consult with Mrs. Meade in relation to the arrangements for the funeral of her late husband. President Grant will attend the services.

PHILADELPHIA. Nov. 7.—At a meeting of the Commercial Exchange, to-day, appropriate resolutions were passed, relative to the death of General Meade. The Mayor will submit a message to the Councils this afternoon, recommending appropriate action to be taken.

NEW YORK, Nov. 7.—The flags throughout the city are at half-mast, in respect to the late General Meade.
The Society of the Army of the Potomac has forwarded a letter of condolence to the son of the late General Meade.

Special Despatch to The Chicago Tribune.
NEW YORK, Nov. 7. —The Philadelphia papers say of General Meade’s last illness : Up to Thursday last, he was in tho enjoyment of his usual good health. On that day he was attacked with pains in the chest and was compelled to take to his bed. His physician was called in, who found him suffering from an attack of pneumonia, the left lung being the point affected. On Monday, the disease showed alarming symptoms,and the General gradually grew worse, until death put an end to his sufferings, about half past 6 o’clock last evening. When he began to grow worse, Dr. Neill called in for consultation two other physicians, but their united skill was of no avail. He was perfectly conscious up to the time of his dissolution. When he breathed his last, he was surrounded by the members of his family. Two years ago, the General suffered a severe attack of the same disease, from which he rallied, but, as it seems, without the full recovery that was supposed.

From Harper’s Weekly November 23, 1872 (page 907):

hero and foe

GENERAL MEADE.

THE battle of Gettysburg is considered the turning battle of the war, and General MEADE was the hero of Gettysburg. Those who have heard him tell the tale of his appointment to the command of the Army of the Potomac and of that prolonged and cruel battle—of which the most elaborate and satisfactory account is that in Mr. EVERETT’S oration at the dedication of the cemetery—will always recall with admiration the manly modesty of the soldier and the vivid interest of the story. At the age of twenty-one he entered the Academy at West Point, and from that time until his death, although for a short period withdrawn from the army, he was in the military service of the country. During the late war he was constantly in action, and was always brave, skillful, and distinguished. In the final operations before Richmond he was General GRANT’S immediate lieutenant. The general said that he tried to leave him as independent as possible in command of the Army of the Potomac, and added that he always found him to be “the right man in the right place.”

Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia

For some time after the war General MEADE commanded the third military district—Georgia, Florida, and Alabama; but for the last three or four years he has been at the head of the Atlantic military division, living in Philadelphia. His reserve and moderation of manner, blended with a keen intellectual perception and ample knowledge, made him always a welcome and delightful companion. Hearty, generous, sympathetic, and, in the truest sense, a gentleman, General MEADE’S death will be widely deplored, as his memory will be gratefully honored as that of one of the ablest and most efficient of our great military chiefs in the war for the Union.

General Meade’s well-known Civil War horse, Old Baldy lived ten years longer than the general: “He was moderately active in retirement and Meade rode the horse in several memorial parades. His last parade was as the “riderless horse” in the funeral procession of his master, in November 1872. Baldy lived another 10 years. He was euthanized on December 16, 1882, at the age of 30, when he became too feeble to stand.” On July 2, 1863 Baldy was wounded and refused to move forward, so he had to be sent to rear for recuperation.

[November 7, 2022: Wikipedia’s article about George Gordon Meade provided a link to the November 12, 1872 New York Times article detailing General Meade’s funeral on the 11th. On the procession from the church, “The horse of the deceased was led by two sergeants of cavalry.” It was very long procession and included President Grant, General Sherman and McDowell.]

Baldy in Culpeper, October 1863

From the Library of Congress: General Meade; The Chicago Daily TribuneNovember 7 and November 8, 1872;; funeral march; the commanding generals from Gettysburg c1905; the apparently recuperating Baldy; Gettysburg statue.
You can read the Harper’s Weekly article at Hathi Trust. Dwkaminski’s June 21, 2020 photo of General Meade’s tombstone is from Wikimedia Commons and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Meade statue at Gettysburg

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, Veterans | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

irrepressible

Posted on October 10, 2022 by SUMPTER

On October 10, 1872 former U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward died at his home in Auburn, New York. People in the Midwest could read all about it the next day. From the October 11, 1872 issue of The Chicago Daily Tribune:

front page news

WILLIAM H. SEMARD. [SIC]

Death of the Venerable Statesman at
His Home in Auburn, N. Y.
Death of Ex-Secretary Seward.

AUBURN, N.Y., Oct. 10.-Hon. William H. Seward died at his residence in this city this afternoon at fifteen minutes past 3 o’clock.

ALBANY, N. Y., Oct. 10.—The sudden announcement of the death of Wm. H. Seward caused a profound sensation here. It was unexpected and has produced wide-spread regret.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30.—The announcement of the death of Mr. Seward is received with regret in all quarters. The State Department building will, as a mark of respect to his memory, be draped with mourning.

AUBURN, N. Y., Oct. 10.—Mr. Seward having taken cold and been somewhat unwell for a day or two, was, on the evening of Saturday, the 5th, seized with a severe chill, and his physician was summoned to him. He had been during the summer in his ordinary good health, suffering only from inconvenience of muscular palsy of his arms, and had been engaged in preparing for the press his account of his recent journey around the world. The chill was that of ordinary tertian ague, accompanied by a harassing catarrhal cough, It was followed by fever and delirium, which lasted till late in the night. On Sunday he was up in the afternoon took his dinner, and passed a comfortable night. On Monday, with the exception of the cough and catarrh, he was comfortable, and dictated as usual to his assistants. On the completion of his book, he played whist Monday evening, but at 10 p.m. a slight chill occurred, followed by delirium and fever, with aggravated catarrhal disturbance of the chest, which lasted nearly all night, his physician seeing him, on this account, after midnight. On Tuesday morning, after some sleep, he was again better, and drove out in the afternoon, but fever, delirium, and restlessness returned with the cough on Tuesday night. On Wednesday he drove oat for two hours, and dictated to his amannenuis as usual, though harassed all day with cough and catarrhal effusions in the chest. On Wednesday evening cough abated for a while, and there seemed a promise of a good night, but the fever, restlessness, and cough returned at bed-time. He was nearly sleepless until 5 o’clock in the morning. At 4 a.m., to relieve the tedium of lying sleepless, he had his son William read the New York Times to him of Wednesday evening. He slept after 5 pretty well till 11 a. m. to-day, though his fever kept up without any real remission. At half-pest 1 he was seized with great difficulty in breathing, caused by a sudden catarrhal effusion into the lungs, commencing with the right lung, and soon involving the left also, which occasioned his death in about two hours. He entertained no apprehension but he should recover from the attack of catarrhal ague, till last night and this morning. While at his age and with the condition of muscular palsy, from which he has suffered so long, the fact that the fever was increasing upon him, together with the catarrhal disturbance, led his physician to apprehend a fatal result. In the course of a week or more, yet no immediate fear was felt, and his dissolution was sudden and unexpected.

Mr. Seward’s intellectual faculties were clear and vigorous to the last, save when disturbed by paroxysms of fever. Just after the effusion from the lungs to-day, and thinking it would relieve his breathing, he was, at his own desire, placed on a lounge and bolstered up and removed from his adjoining bed-room into the study, where, in the midst of his books, and his literary and other papers, and surrounded by his relatives and a few friends, and all his devoted dependents, he breathed his last. For the last hour of his life, as the powers of nature was giving way, his condition became easy, and he spent the time in affectionate leave-taking of relations and dependents, and finally sank quietly to his last rest as if going to sleep.

Harper’s Weekly provided two takes on Mr. Seward’s career in its October 26, 1872 issue.

Page 828:

WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD.

THE death of this venerable statesman, who passed away a few days since at his quiet country home, was an event for which the public had been for some time prepared, yet the announcement of his decease came at last like a sudden shock. Mr. SEWARD had lived so long in the public eye, his history was so interwoven with the great events of the last twenty years, that it seems hardly possible to realize the fact that he is gone from among us. He was not a very old man in years: but for physical infirmities, increased by long and arduous public service, and by the assassin’s attack which so nearly deprived us of his great services when we could least spare them, he might have lived many years in the honorable retirement which crowned a public career of nearly half a century, passed in the midst of great events, and devoted to the highest and truest interests of his country.

death of a diplomat

It were vain to attempt, in the meagre space of a single article, to give even an outline sketch of his public life. Nor is it necessary. Mr. SEWARD lived before the eyes of all his countrymen. From the opening of his career until its close he took a prominent part in all the great movements of the day. An early disciple of JEFFERSON and JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, always faithful to the fundamental American principle of equal rights before the law, his public life was conspicuous and illustrious. His trust in popular institutions, in their capacity to right all wrongs, to correct their own errors, to secure the increasing prosperity of a rapidly increasing people by making justice more and more appear to be good policy, was constant and sublime. At one time, indeed, his faith in popular institutions brought him under a cloud. He believed that no government was so strong and persistent as a popular government. He was sure that the American people would not submit to a dissolution of the Union. He believed with Mr. LINCOLN, in the earlier days of the secession movement, that the “irrepressible conflict” between slavery and freedom could be waged under the peaceful forms of law. In this he was mistaken; but his trust in the strength of a popular government, and in the determination of the people to maintain the Union, was fully justified; and the irrepressible conflict ended, as he foresaw it would end, in the triumph of liberty.

not quite

Mr. SEWARD’S temperament inclined him to conciliation, to the settlement of disputes by diplomacy. He was unwilling to draw the sword while a chance remained for securing a settlement without appealing to the stern arbitrament of war. This exposed him to the censure and taunts of others of more ardent and hasty temperament, who yet did not love their country and liberty more than he. His clear perception of the probable scope, duration, and uncertainty of a civil war led him to prefer every honorable means of conciliation to that terrible risk, until that risk was no longer to be averted. It was the fashion among those who differed from him on questions of policy to style him a “trimmer,” a “doctrinaire, ”a“ theorist.” But his great and successful career as Secretary of State during the most trying part of our national history forever set that criticism at rest. On all important points of domestic policy it is known that President LINCOLN agreed with him. That he managed our foreign relations with consummate skill is now universally admitted. The task was never more difficult and delicate; it was never more successfully performed. Now that the clouds of partisan animosity are lifted, and his name and career have become the common pride of Americans, it is clear that at a time of unexampled peril, when other nations would have gladly interfered, he held them aloof, and kept the war from assuming proportions and eventualities which the imagination shrinks from picturing.

It is pleasant to know that Mr. SEWARD lived to see his name and his career vindicated to the judgment of his countrymen. He was not compelled to leave his fame to the next ages. His noble and illustrious services as a public teacher, boldly asserting the original rights and the natural equality of man, at a time when few were ready to stand by his side, have been clearly recognized. His eminent services as a statesman have been fully acknowledged. Every cloud of distrust, of misappreciation, has been riven by the light of accomplished results; the erroneous judgments of impatience and imperfect knowledge have been reversed. In his quiet retirement at Auburn, where his last years were spent in writing the history of his life, he had the supreme satisfaction of knowing that the great work to which that life had been devoted was accomplished; that liberty had triumphed; that the integrity of the Union was assured forever; and he passed away in the happy consciousness of possessing the love and gratitude of his countrymen.

Page 826:

excellent anti-slavery speeches

MR. SEWARD.

“DEATH hath this also,” says BACON, “that it openeth the gate to good fame.” Mr. SEWARD had survived his active career long enough to allow his contemporaries to forecast the judgment of history upon his life and character. A man of great ability and of great sagacity, he lived during great events, and was a conspicuous actor among them. He was the political leader of a moral reform. By temperament an optimist and a doctrinaire, and always intimately associated with men, he won regard by unflagging sweetness and serenity, but he did not command by moral elevation. A statesman by taste and training and ambition, and thrown into the most stormy crisis of the national life, he did not comprehend nor control the deepest force of the situation. He was for many years the most eminent political representative of the anti-slavery movement; but he was drawn to it by personal sympathy and intellectual shrewdness rather than by moral perception or conviction.

A man of the utmost generosity and kindness of heart, the thought of suffering was painful to him—and his defense of the negro FREEMAN showed the depth and swiftness of his sympathy. But he was never technically an Abolitionist. He was a Whig until it was evident that the question of slavery was the really dividing issue, and then he became the advocate of the cause which his shrewd mind showed him must surely triumph. But his optimistic and doctrinaire tendency veiled from him the awful reality of the conflict which in the familiar phrase he described as “irrepressible.” His faith in our popular system was so profound that, with his temperament, he could not believe that it could be seriously assailed; and as he did not comprehend the terrible sincerity of the cause which he represented, he was equally unsuspicious of the grim earnestness of the opposition. In the midst of a speech in the Senate in which with relentless logic he foretold the inevitable disappearance of slavery in the conflict with freedom, he could not understand the faces or the minds of the slave-holders around him, and on one occasion abstractedly put out his hand to Senator BUTLER, of South Carolina, for a pinch of snuff. The Senator handed him his box, but turned away his head, and Mr. SEWARD calmly proceeded, not seeing in that little incident how much more than logic was involved in the debate.

He thought that slavery would be beaten at the polls, and so surrender and peacefully disappear. He smiled at the threats of secession, and believed them to be only moves in a lively political game. In December, 1860, at the New England dinner in New York, he said that the trouble would be over in sixty or ninety days, and he honestly believed it. In his hopeful mind no trouble could last more than ninety days. On the 22d of February, 1861, the flags were flying in Washington, and he said to a colleague, as they walked to the Capitol, “Look at those flags: yet they talk of secession!” And in the same session he believed that his speech would disperse all the lightning of rebellion. From the moment that the civil war began he was bewildered. It was illogical, incomprehensible, a mistake. He fatally misinterpreted its scope in his early instructions to our foreign ministers. But his buoyant temperament floated him above the uproar, and while he clung to M’CLELLAN and opposed the radical policy, he yet believed in success, and never desponded. When the war ended he held the doctrinaire view of the situation. The States had attempted secession. They had failed. Consequently they were as before, with the exception that the war had abolished slavery. Here again he failed to apprehend the fact in his satisfaction with the form. And here, of course, he separated from the party of the war, and his political career ended.

a life of service

His services to the country were very great, and will not be forgotten. His sagacity showed him when the moment had arrived in which the mass of the Whig party in New York would follow a trusted leader into the antislavery path. He seized the moment, and the Republican party presently appeared. From that time his speeches were the most popularly powerful and instructive and effective in the political anti-slavery propaganda. Calm, forcible, logical, clear, and free from vituperative rhetoric, they were a school in which the people gladly learned. After his bitter disappointment in the nomination of FREMONT in 1856 he made a speech at Detroit, which, in its detailed exposure of the manner in which slavery absolutely possessed the government, from every committee in Congress down to every little post-office in the land, was one of the most valuable speeches ever made in the country. And again, after his disappointment in the nomination of Mr. LINCOLN in 1860, his series of speeches in the West, for their variety, force, animation, and power, are entirely unrivaled in political history, except by the Illinois speeches of LINCOLN in his famous debate with DOUGLAS. To these may be added the California and Kansas speeches in the Senate: for the speeches of a statesman, in a free country, are among his most illustrious and valuable services.

two-term Secretary of State

As Secretary of State Mr. SEWARD’S policy was successful, and this fact has perhaps not been adequately recognized. It was an immense service to stay the hand of foreign intervention at that time; and the skillful and masterly correspondence which Mr. ADAMS conducted with Lord RUSSELL was in strict conformity to Mr.SEWARD’S instructions. The Secretary’s letter surrendering SLIDELL and MASON was extremely able. He saved without dispute the honor of his own country while he yielded to the demand of England. In reply to the question what he considered the darkest hour of the war, Mr. SEWARD once said, “That which elapsed between my sending the letter informally to Lord LYONS and hearing from him that it was satisfactory. For I knew that I had gone to the utmost limit that the country would approve, and that if the letter were unsatisfactory to England, we should be at war with her in a month.”

It was Mr. SEWARD’S curious fate to have no part in the crowning triumph of the principles which he had most warmly sustained. By position he was the radical chief before the war, but during its continuance and at its close he was unfriendly to the radical policy. But it is his glory that while WEBSTER and CLAY were strenuous for compromises which were necessarily fatal, SEWARD, remembering BURKE’S question, “Who would barter the immediate jewel of his soul?” nobly said, “I feel the sands of compromise sliding from beneath me, and my feet take hold of the rock of the Constitution.” He had not the weight of WEBSTER nor the grace of CLAY, but his national service was infinitely greater than theirs. He had not their personal magnetism, nor so fond a following; but those who most deeply influence our politics to-day are his pupils, and not theirs. Undaunted in spirit to the last, his life gently ended, and the grave closes over all bitterness of feeling toward him, leaving only the kindly remembrance of his great and patriotic service.

Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York

I have a vague memory that one year our elementary school class took a field trip to the Seward House Museum. For a good photograph of William Seward in his final years check out LincolnConspirators. You can read about “The Doctrine of the Irrepressible Conflict” at Accessible Archives.

This time I got the Harper’s Weekly content from two sources: Hathi Trust and the Internet Archive. I took the picture of the Sewards’ graves on October 2, 2022. From the Library of Congress: The October 11, 1872 issue of The Chicago Daily Tribune; the Courier-Extra from April 15, 1865; the image of the Seward statue and homestead from A souvenir. City of Auburn in the state of New York 1900 image 32; Alexander Gardner’s carte d’ visite; Carol M. Highsmith’s July 19, 2018 photograph of Seward’s house and the accompanying historical marker

The Seward home,nowadays

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, American History, Lincoln Administration, Postbellum Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

three parties … two candidates

Posted on September 5, 2022 by SUMPTER

1872 was another presidential election year in the United States. Would the Republican incumbent, General Ulysses S. Grant be reelected? President Grant was popular, even though his Administration was involved in several scandals. One possible impediment to Grant’s reelection was that not all non-Democrats wanted a second term for the president. The Liberal Republican party was formed in 1870. At the party’s convention in Cincinnati in May 1872 the Liberal Republicans chose newspaper publisher Horace Greeley to be its nominee. Harper’s Weekly opposed the Liberal Republicans’ challenge to Grant, but it did give Horace Greeley his due as a self-made man.

candidate and his creation

From the May 18, 1872 edition of Harper’s Weekly:

HORACE GREELEY.

The man whom the “Liberal” Republicans at Cincinnati selected to be their standard-bearer in the ensuing political campaign is in every sense of the word “self-made.” His father, ZACCHEUS GREELEY, was a poor New Hampshire farmer, who was only able to give him the advantages of a common-school education, and very little of that. But his energy, ambition, and capacity supplied all deficiencies, and enabled him to push his way from obscurity to the prominent position he now occupies.

HORACE GREELEY was born at Amherst, New Hampshire, on the 3d of February, 1811. He was a rather feeble child, and for years suffered from want of physical strength rather than from any positive disease. He lived with his parents in New Hampshire until the 1st of February, 1821, going to school a little and working on the farm a great deal, when, in consequence of his father’s failure and the enforced sale of his farm, the whole family went to West Haven, Vermont. Here he was distinguished at school by the readiness with which he absorbed knowledge.

After about five years of farm experience in West Haven, where each season proved a worse failure than its predecessor, he became an apprentice in a newspaper office, The Northern Spectator, at East Poultney, Vermont.

Mr. GREELEY remained four years at East Poultney, doing the hard work of an apprentice with credit. He went thence to visit his father in Chautauqua County, New York, and subsequently worked at his trade in Jamestown, Lodi [now Gowanda], and Erie. But work in small towns was scarce, and, after vain searching for permanent employment, the young printer started for New York city. He went by canal-boat from Buffalo to Schenectady, and thence footing it over the old turnpike, he reached Albany, where he took passage in a tow-boat for New York. Here he landed August 17, 1831. Work was the thing first in order, and after a short search he found it with a printer in Chatham Street.

Mr. GREELEY made his first business venture in New York as a partner in a daily paper called the Morning Post, started January 1, 1833, by Dr. H.D. SHEPARD. The paper lived about a month. In March, 1834, he made his first visible mark in journalism by issuing the New Yorker, a large and handsome weekly paper devoted to literature and news. Here, for the first time, he began to use a pen as well as types, and in a short time became widely known as a writer. Two years after starting this paper Mr. GREELEY married. Five children have been born to him, of whom two boys and one girl died at early ages.

reading the ticker tape

While publishing the New Yorker Mr. GREELEY made his début as a political writer in 1838, on a small campaign paper called the Jeffersonian, and in the HARRISON campaign as the editor of the Log-Cabin. On the 10th of April, 1841, the day on which the people observed the funeral of President HARRISON, Mr. GREELEY, almost moneyless and unaided, issued the first number of the New York Tribune.

In 1848 Mr. GREELEY was elected to Congress to fill a vacancy, and served from December 1 of that year till March 4, 1849. His Congressional career was not a brilliant one, and was chiefly distinguished by his vigorous assault upon the mileage system. In 1850 he published a volume of political lectures and essays, under the title of “Hints toward Reform.” The following year he made a voyage to Europe, and during his visit to England served as a juryman at the Crystal Palace Exhibition. On his return he published a volume entitled “Glimpses at Europe.” His first important contribution to political literature was his “History of the Struggle for Slavery Extension and Restriction from 1787 to 1856,” the year of its publication. In 1859 Mr. GREELEY paid a visit to California, traveling overland across the plains.

During the political excitement which immediately preceded the outbreak of the Southern rebellion, Mr. GREELEY, in common with many prominent members of the Democratic party, took the ground that the disaffected States should be permitted to depart in peace, if a majority of their inhabitants desired the separation, and form a new government for themselves. On the actual occurrence of hostilities, however, he gave the national administration a warm support; though several times during the progress of the war, when disasters had overtaken the national forces in the field, and the issue of the campaign was wavering in the balance, he appeared to lose heart and to be ready to give up the contest on almost any terms that could be obtained. It is fortunate for the nation that his views were not shared by the dominant party at the North; and doubtless Mr. GREELEY himself is now well satisfied that his counsels were disregarded.

Mighty Mouse?

To comment at length upon Mr. GREELEY’S political career would be beyond the purpose of this sketch. Our readers can not fail to remember his famous tour through the Southern States a few months ago, when he shook hands with JEFFERSON DAVIS, and made conciliatory speeches to Southern people who have not become reconciled to the issue of the war nor to the amendments to the Constitution. The tour looked amazingly like a part of an electioneering programme, like Johnson’s famous “swinging round the circle,” or General Scott’s equally famous “military tour of inspection” in 1852.

It was evident several weeks before the meeting of the Cincinnati Convention that Mr. GREELEY would be a candidate for nomination; but, though his strength and popularity with certain classes were allowed — and it was supposed he would receive a large complimentary vote — very few outside of the circle of his immediate friends and admirers supposed he would obtain the first place on the ticket. The Hon. CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS was regarded as by far the strongest and most eligible man for the position; and this opinion remained unchanged until a short time before the balloting commenced. On the first five ballots Mr. ADAMS took the lead, but without securing the number of votes necessary to a choice. TRUMBULL and DAVIS were nowhere, from the start. The contest lay between ADAMS and GREELEY. At the
close of the sixth ballot the poll stood as follows:
Adams, …………… 324 Davis…………….6
Greeley……………. 332 Chase…………… 32
Trumbull…………. 19 Palmer…………..1
Before the result was announced, the Illinois delegation changed to GREELEY, with the exception of one member, who insisted that his vote should stand for TRUMBULL. Several other States followed the example of Illinois, and the final result was announced as follows:
Whole vote…………. 714 Adams…………… 187
Necessary to a choice. 358 Greeley…………. 482
A motion to make the nomination unanimous was lost. The Convention nominated Mr. GRATZ BROWN, of Missouri, for Vice-President on the second ballot, and then adjourned sine die.

The Liberal Republican platform called for civil service reform in its fifth plank, and that required a presidential term limit of one term:

“Fifth: The Civil Service of the Government has become a mere instrument of partisan tyranny and personal ambition and an object of selfish greed. It is a scandal and reproach upon free institutions and breeds a demoralization dangerous to the perpetuity of republican government. We therefore regard such thorough reforms of the Civil Service as one of the most pressing necessities of the hour; that honesty, capacity, and fidelity constitute the only valid claim to public employment; that the offices of the Government cease to be a matter of and patronage, and that public station become again a post of honor. To this end it is imperatively required that no President shall be a candidate for re-election.”

Uncle Sam approves

As expected, the Republicans nominated Ulysses S. Grant for a second term as president at the convention held in Philadelphia June 5th and 6th, although they replaced Schuyler Colfax with Senator Henry Wilson from Massachusetts.

The majority of Democrat delegates opted for the anybody but Grant philosophy. At their convention in Baltimore July 9-10 they overwhelmingly chose Greeley and Gratz Brown as their nominees for president and vice-president and adopted the Liberal Republican platform. Wikipedia summarizes the strategy and the inherent tension:

“Accepting the Liberal platform meant the Democrats had accepted the New Departure strategy, which rejected the anti-Reconstruction platform of 1868. They realized that to win the election they had to look forward, and not try to re-fight the Civil War. They also realized that they would only split the anti-Grant vote if they nominated a candidate other than Greeley. However, Greeley’s long reputation as the most aggressive antagonist of the Democratic Party, its principles, its leadership, and its activists, cooled Democrats’ enthusiasm for the presidential nominee.

“Some Democrats were worried that backing Greeley would effectively bring the party to extinction, much like how the moribund Whig Party had been doomed by endorsing the Know Nothing candidacy of Millard Fillmore in 1856, though others felt that the Democrats were in a much stronger position on a regional level than the Whigs had been at the time of their demise, and predicted (correctly, as it turned out) that the Liberal Republicans would not be viable in the long-term due to their lack of distinctive positions compared to the main Republican Party. A sizable minority led by James A. Bayard sought to act independently of the Liberal Republican ticket, but the bulk of the party agreed to endorse Greeley’s candidacy. The convention, which lasted only six hours stretched over two days, is the shortest major political party convention in history.”

Harper’s Weekly and its cartoonists suggested uniting with Democrats meant uniting with The Ku Klux Klan and Tammany Hall.

marriage of convenience?

The image of Horace Greeley reading Cincinnati convention updates via the relatively new ticker tape was published in a humorous account of the convention that you can read at Hathi Trust. All the Harper’s Weekly 1872 content in this post is also from Hathi Trust. As you can see, Thomas Nast and the other cartoonists at Harper’s Weekly were having a field day attacking Mr. Greeley and the Liberal Republican – Democratic fusion. As we might see, there were a few small third parties for 1872.

Posted in 150 Years Ago, The Election of 1872 | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

hot time

Posted on August 7, 2022 by SUMPTER

free ice water

150 years ago this summer New York City suffered some very hot weather. From the July 27, 1872 issue of Harper’s Weekly:

THE HEATED TERM.

THE heated term which ended on the 6th inst, was not only the most protracted, but also the most severe, ever experienced in this section of the country. At no time did the thermometer run much below ninety degrees in the shade, and in the hotter portions of the day a hundred degrees was the mark in the least exposed places. Everybody who could afford it fled from the large cities, and sought relief among the mountains or by the sea-shore. But the masses were compelled to remain at home and endure the terrible affliction. Of course the death roll showed a large increase over former weeks, and was much larger than that of any corresponding week for many years. In this city alone nearly 1600 deaths occurred during seven days, of which number 983, or about 63 per cent., were of children under five years of age. The little ones were chiefly the children of the poor, who were crowded into the smallest rooms of our filthy tenement-houses, where a breath of pure air is never drawn by the miserable occupants. No wonder they died: the only thing to be wondered at is that they lived so long. But the mortality was not confined to the children. Strong men dropped in the streets while going about their work, and many, a poor fellow who had never known what a day of sickness was succumbed to the burning rays of the sun, and was carried home dead.

At such a time of peril it was fortunate indeed that hospitals were provided for the reception of the stricken ones. The ambulances were kept busy all the day long running hither and thither to bear the sufferers to a place of relief. Among the most useful of these establishments is the Centre Street Hospital, near Chambers Street. It is very convenient for the use of down-town patients, who, if they were compelled to wait for treatment until they could reach Bellevue, would surely die on the way. Our artist on this page gives a sketch of one of the wards of the hospital referred to, showing the preliminary treatment of sun-stroke cases. Bags of ice are placed on the heads and under the arms of the victims, after which the entire bodies are rubbed down with broken ice. When this has been done the patients are removed to another ward, where they are subjected to further treatment. During the hot spell House-Surgeon VANDEWATER and Warden BROWN, with their assistants, were kept very busy, as many as twenty-two cases demanding their attention in a single day. To the credit of the doctors it should be said that eight out of every twelve cases were saved.

There is one feature of the sun-stroke that deserves to be kept well in mind — viz., that many of the cases are of men and women addicted to the excessive use of alcoholic liquors, and that the recovery of such is almost hopeless. To keep persons out of the dram-shops, particularly on very hot days, is therefore a good work. But how shall this be done? Men’s lips are parched with thirst – their throats burned dry: they must have drink. A humane individual has undertaken the practical solution of this question by placing barrels of ice-water in the streets of New York and Brooklyn for the free use of those who pass by. The upper sketch on this page shows the thirsty crowd refreshing itself from one of the barrels on Printing-house Square, opposite the City Hall. Metal drinking-cups are attached to the barrel, and thousands daily avail themselves of the grateful favor. Many of these are mechanics and artisans, or girls and boys employed in the factories, none of whom could afford to pay for a glass of soda-water or other cooling drink. The work of supplying cold water to the masses, free of charge, is worthy of imitation every where.

heated term

In its next issue Harper’s Weekly featured a couple more pictures related to the oppressive weather.

cleaner and cooler

WAITING TO BATHE.

THE upper sketch on page 604, representing a crowd of poor women waiting on a sultry day for admittance to one of the free bathing-houses established by the city last year, was drawn by Mr. SOL EYTINGE from an actual scene. These free bathing-houses are entirely inadequate to the necessities of the poor of the city during such a summer as this. Their number should be increased tenfold, in order that every man, woman, and child in the city could enjoy the healthful refreshment of a daily bath. Such facilities would undoubtedly decrease the average death rate of the “heated term,” and contribute greatly to the comfort of the thousands of poor people who can not leave the city, and to whom a sail even to the nearest bathing beach involves an expense beyond their means. With the present limited facilities alternate days have to be assigned to men and women at these establishments; and sometimes the crowd is so great, especially on the days assigned to women, that many of the poor creatures stand for hours in the heat awaiting their turn. We trust that before another hot season arrives the city will be so well supplied with free bathing-houses that no one who desires to take advantage of this means of cleanliness and health shall be debarred by lack of opportunity.

STREET ARABS TAKING A FOOT BATH.

A FEW days since Mr. PAUL FRENZENY, whose spirited illustrations often adorn the pages of the Weekly, witnessed the droll scene depicted in the lower sketch on page 604. In the rear of a large watering-cart, which lumbered slowly through the street, marched a squad of jolly urchins, their ragged trowsers turned up above the knee, bathing their naked legs in the mimic rain which spouted over the dusty cobble-stones. The thermometer stood among the nineties, but the boys seemed perfectly happy as they trudged along; and doubtless many of the amused lookers-on from the sidewalk would have been glad to take a foot-bath with them.

You can read about New York City’s Public Bathhouses at Curbed New York and The Bowery Boys, which indicates the city began experimenting with public bath houses at least as early as 1870. The article included an image from the August 20, 1870 issue of Harper’s Weekly.. It’s the interior of a building the paper pictured in it’s July 16th, 1870 edition.

30 minutes water time

free refreshment

We’ve had lots of hot weather since 1872. I’m getting ahead of the story a little bit, but here’s an example from 1882, showing the “recent ‘heated term’ and its effect upon the population of the tenement districts A night scene on the East Side.” The top picture in this post was said to be at Printing House Square, where almost twelve years earlier “Wide-Awkes” marched to show their support for the Lincoln-Hamlin presidential ticket.

another hot night

You can find Harper’s Weekly for 1870 at the Internet Archive. I got the material from Harper’s Weekly 1872 at HathiTrust. From the Library of Congress: rooftop from Frank Leslie’s illustrated newspaper, Aug. 12, 1882, p. 393; procession of Wide-Awakes in October 1860 from the October 13, 1860 issue of Harper’s Weekly.

momentum for a momentous election

Posted in 150 Years Ago, Postbellum Society | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

dedicated

Posted on July 4, 2022 by SUMPTER

Lincoln Memorial dedication May 30, 1922

The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. was dedicated on Memorial Day a century ago (five score years). From the May 31, 1922 issue of The New York Times:

dedicated

WASHINGTON, May 30. – The Lincoln Memorial magnificent and compelling in its purity of line and simplicity, was dedicated this afternoon.

For ten years this white marble shrine with its massive Doric columns, has been slowly rising on the banks of the Potomac at the western end of the Mall, where once was a dismal, marshy waste. Its completion gives to Washington three dominating structures, each different but each fitting into a harmonious whole, on the Mall. At the east is the imposing dome of the Capitol, between the perfectly proportioned Washington Monument points upward a granite index finger, and to the west, glistening like a flawless gem in its setting, stands the memorial that perpetuates in marble, sculpture and fresco, the spirit of Abraham Lincoln.

Today, fifty-seven years after the tragedy in Ford’s Theatre, the Civil War tunes, the martial airs of Spanish War days and the stirring songs of the A. E. F. sounded through Washington streets as veterans of three wars marched to visit the graves of their dead. In the afternoon these processions converged at the Lincoln Memorial, where Chief Justice Taft, as Chairman of the Memorial Commission, turned over the building to the Government, represented by President Harding.

Thus a palfietic [?] handful of the fast dwindling survivors of the Civil War, some of whom knew Lincoln, had the satisfaction of witnessing within their lifetime the dedication of a marble symbol of Stanton’s announcement that the Great Emancipator belongs to the ages.

“in the name of 12,000,000 negroes”

Blue and Gray Join in Tribute.

The ceremonies were in keeping with the simplicity of the memorial. Grand Army men, led by Lewis S. Pilcer [Pilcher], Commander- in-Chief, presented the color and laid symbols of the army and navy at the foot of the structure. Across the aisle sat gray-clad Confederate veterans, and from their seats they could look over the Potomac to the Virginia hills, where Arlington, once the home of Robert E. Lee, nestles among the trees. Robert R. Moton, President of Tuskegee Institute, paid tribute to Lincoln in the name of 12,000,000 negroes. Edwin Markham read the revision of his poem, “Lincoln, the Man of the People.”

Chief Justice Taft, under whose administration as President the memorial was begun, gave a short account of the labors of the Memorial Commission and delivered the building into the Government’s keeping. President Harding then accepted the memorial and drew a lesson from Lincoln’s steadfastness under criticism, eulogizing him as not a superman but as a “natural human being with the frailties mixed with the virtues of humanity.” The Invocation and benediction were delivered by the Rev. Wallace Radcliffe, pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, where Lincoln worshipped.

part of the crowd with “granite index finger”

Thousands assembled at the approaches to the memorial and the crowd extended down along the quarter-mile long mirror basin in which the Washington Monument was reflected with the background of a cloudless sky. Amplifying devices, cleverly concealed so that they did not detract from the beauty of the memorial, carried the speakers’ voices several hundred yards, and by the same means the speeches were sent broadcast by radiophone.

Wilson Unable to Attend.

Just back of the east colonnade were seated the official members of the party, the president and Mrs. Harding, members of the Cabinet and their wives, Robert T. Lincoln, the martyred President’s son and Mrs. Lincoln; members of the Memorial Commission; Henry R. Bacon, architect of the memorial; Daniel Chester French, sculptor of the heroic seated figure of Lincoln placed in the centre of the memorial, and Jules Guerin, designer of the allegorical frescoes. Places were reserved for former President and Mrs. Wilson, but early this morning Mr. Wilson sent word to Chief Justice Taft that he would be unable to attend.

“martyred President’s son”

To the left along the colonnade were members of the Supreme Court and to the right Foreign Ambassadors and their staffs. On the terrace were other members of the Diplomatic Corps and members of both houses of Congress.

A conspicuous figure at the end of the row of Ambassadors was Otto Wiedefelt, the German Ambassador, who presented his credentials last week. He arrived late and alone and followed the proceedings with close attention, occasionally leaving his seat and standing against one of the columns to obtain a better view of the speakers and the crowd beneath.

There were two incidents that gave temporarily a touch out of keeping with the dignity of the ceremonies. One was at the end of the exercises, when the Chief Justice requested the people in the audience to remain in their places until the President proceeded to his car, whereupon several dozen members of

Continued on Page Three

According to documentation at the Library of Congress, Robert Russa Moton began his Lincoln memorial speech by looking back to 1620, when the Pilgrim Fathers “laid the foundations of our national existence upon the bed-rock of liberty.” Since then liberty had been the common bond of “our united people,” and Americans had fought to extend freedom throughout the world. In his second paragraph Dr. Moton looked back a year before the Pilgrim landing, when a ship landed in Jamestown, Virginia that brought the first African slaves to North America. Those slaves were “pioneers of bondage, a bondage degrading alike to body, mind, and spirit.”

Robert Russa Moten in 1916

Those two contrasting principles eventually led to the costly Civil War, which, with Lincoln at the helm, the Union fought to win, and which, at its conclusion, Lincoln’s life was sacrificed. Dr. Moton agreed that Lincoln fought the Civil war to keep the Union together, but he also fought it to free the slaves. Despite doubt and adversity, President Lincoln “put his trust in God and spoke the word that gave freedom to a race, and vindicated the honor of a nation” by making it live up to the principle of the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal.

In answering the question of whether Abraham Lincoln’s sacrifice was worth it, Mr. Moton first pointed out the loyalty of African-Americans, from Crispus Attucks killed during the American Revolution to the black doughboys who had recently sacrificed their lives in France. He used statistics to detail all the progress African-Americans had made in less than sixty years of freedom. Lincoln’s sacrifice was worth it because the black race “had taken full advantage of its freedom to develop its latent powers for itself and for the nation.” There was still more to do, but progress was being made: “As we gather on this consecrated spot, his spirit must rejoice that sectional rancours and racial antagonisms are softening more and more into mutual understanding and effective cooperation.” Dr. Moton hoped that the nation would be dedicated anew to the task for which Lincoln died – “equal opportunity and unhampered freedom” for all citizens, even the most humble, regardless of color or creed.

_____________________________________________________________

poet

at the dedication

“the Captain with the mighty heart”

___________________________________________________________

Robert Lincoln ascends the steps

William Howard Taft, Warren G. Harding, and Robert Todd Lincoln, standing, left to right (http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/89708459/)

Taft, Harding, Lincoln (Robert Todd)

_____________________________________________

According to Abraham Lincoln Online the Bliss copy of the Gettysburg Address is the version reproduced on the Lincoln Memorial. A couple places of the places where you can read more about Robert Russa Moton would be Encyclopedia Virginia and Tuskegee University. In 1920 Dr. Moton wrote the introduction to The Upward Path: A Reader For Colored Children:
INTRODUCTION
The Negro has been in America just about three hundred years and in that time he has become intertwined in all the history of the nation. He has fought in her wars; he has endured hardships with her pioneers; he has toiled in her fields and factories; and the record of some of the nation’s greatest heroes is in large part the story of their service and sacrifice for this people.
The Negro arrived in America as a slave in 1619, just one year before the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth in search of freedom. Since then their lot has not always been a happy one, but nevertheless, in spite of difficulties and hardships, the race has learned many valuable lessons in its conflict with the American civilization. As a slave the lessons of labor, of constructive endeavor, of home-life and religion were learned, even if the opportunity was not always present to use these lessons to good advantage.
After slavery other lessons were learned in their order. Devoted self-sacrificing souls—soldiers of human brotherhood—took up the task in the schoolroom which their brothers began on the battlefield. Here it was that the Negro learned the history of[Pg x] America, of the deeds of her great men, the stirring events which marked her development, the ideals that made America great. And so well have they been learned, that to-day there are no more loyal Americans than the twelve million Negroes that make up so large a part of the nation.
But the race has other things yet to learn: The education of any race is incomplete unless the members of that race know the history and character of its own people as well as those of other peoples. The Negro has yet to learn of the part which his own race has played in making America great; has yet to learn of the noble and heroic souls among his own people, whose achievements are praiseworthy among any people. A number of books—poetry, history and fiction—have been written by Negro authors in which the life of their own people has been faithfully and attractively set forth; but until recently no effort has been made on a large scale to see that Negro boys and girls became acquainted with these books and the facts they contained concerning their people.
In this volume the publishers have brought together a number of selections from the best literary works of Negro authors, through which these young people may learn more of the character and accomplishments of the worthy members of their race. Such matter is both informing and inspiring, and no Negro boy or girl can read it without feeling a deeper pride in his[Pg xi] own race. The selections are each calculated to teach a valuable lesson, and all make a direct appeal to the best impulses of the human heart.
For a number of years several educational institutions for Negro youths have conducted classes in Negro history with a similar object in view. The results of these classes have been most gratifying and the present volume is a commendable contribution to the literature of such a course.
Robert R. Moton
Tuskegee Institute, Ala.,
June 30, 1920

mall mapped (1927)

I took the New York Times material from The New York Times The Complete Front Pages 1851-2008. New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers Inc., 2008. on one of the DVDs.. The 1916 portrait of Robert Russa Moten is from Wikimedia Commons.

“laying the cornerstone” February 12, 1915

under construction

From the Library of Congress: the long view of the dedication; part of the large crowd with Washington Monument in background; 1927 map of the Mall in Washington, D.C.; laying the cornerstone on Lincoln’s birthday in 1915; Robert Russa Moton paying tribute to Mr. Lincoln; Taft, Harding with Robert T. Lincoln; Edwin Markham out in the country, apparently; Markham at the Lincoln Memorial dedication; Markham’s poem; the Memorial from the Washington Monument (1935);Robert Todd Lincoln seated; Robert and (I’m guessing) wife arrive; the Memorial under construction; July 4, 1939 fireworks as viewed from Lincoln Memorial; the memorial being cleaned. According to the Library the photo was taken on June 4, 1991. The cleaner was James Hudson, “who died at the Lincoln Memorial 4 July 1993.”

Happy 4th of July!

memorial maintenance

Memorial from Monument

Posted in 100 Years Ago, American History, Monuments and Statues | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

forget the feud

Posted on May 30, 2022 by SUMPTER

remember the dead

From the June 8, 1872 issue of Harper’s Weekly:

DECORATION-DAY.

In the beautiful and touching illustration on our first page this week our artist expresses the universal feeling of the country. While the people have no wish to keep alive the smouldering fires of old feuds and sectional hatreds, they will not let the memory of their dead heroes perish, or the freshness of their laurels fade. Year by year affectionate hands will strew their graves with flowers and hang wreaths upon their portraits. Not in hatred or anger, but in love and gratitude, the nation’s voice will every year repeat,

“How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country’s wishes blest!”

Southerners might have considered May 30th a Northern holiday. From the May 31, 1872 issue of The Charleston Daily News:

rain and amputation

You can read most of Harper’s Weekly for 1872 at HathiTrust – the article reproduced here is on pages 441-442. The clipping from the May 31, 1872 issue of The Charleston Daily News is from the Library of Congress (image 1).
Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, Postbellum Society | Tagged , | Leave a comment