Civil War Memory

Ex-Confederates Learn of Lincoln's Assassination

Reminders of defeat could be found throughout Virginia, from the burned-down business district of Richmond to the leveled countryside of the Shenandoah Valley and northern Virginia.  A London Times correspondent reported that “the once fertile fields,” between Winchester and Martinsburg, “are lying barren, for their owners have lost all their means, their negroes having fled and their horses and money having been carried off.”  As if the physical destruction were not enough, he went on to note that the “graves are scattered by the roadside.”  This reporter would have had just as much to report had he traveled east over the Blue Ridge Mountains to the area between Manassas and Alexandria.  The constant movement of armies along with the two major battles near Manassas left miles of entrenchments, scores of naked chimneys, and few trees standing; one observer described the area south of Alexandria along the railroad as a “prairie.” 

While the physical manifestations of war painted a bleak picture of the immediate future, news of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on April 14 presented ex-Confederates with the possibility of more severe retribution from the federal government as well as more immediate threats amongst a saddened and vengeful Union army.  Edgar Warfield learned of Lincoln’s assassination while waiting for a steamship in Richmond for the final leg of his journey to Alexandria.  He stood amongst a large crowd of white and black (“but mostly black”) Union soldiers: “A feeling of uneasiness crept over us as we momentarily expected something unpleasant to happen.”  The passion & excitement of the crowds," in Washington, D.C., according to Edward P. Alexander, "were so great that anyone on the street, recognised merely as a Confederate, would have been instantly mobbed & lynched."  News filtered throughout Virginia slowly and was filled with rumor.  Not until April 20 did Samuel Howard learn Lincoln had “been shot & killed his son wounded, and Seward desperately wonded [sic].”  Although William Grove’s diary entry of April 15 includes a note indicating Lincoln had been shot and “Seward mortally wounded” as late as April 25 he was contemplating more recent news that both Ulysses S. Grant and Horace Greeley had been assassinated.  It is almost impossible to find an accurate account of events in Washington among returning soldiers.  This is not surprising given the state of communications in the immediate postwar period.  It is important, however, to understand that Lincoln's assassination was an ongoing event for these men, the scale of which could not be properly understood.  In the most extreme cases men walked home under the impression that the president, vice-president, secretary of state, and highest ranking general had all fallen victim to Booth's conspiracy; simply stated, for these individuals there was no federal government.

Although many white Southerners agreed that Lincoln's actions since 1861 were best understood as those of a "tyrant" they remained ambivalent about his murder.  John Dooley observed that "people don't know whether to rejoice or to be sad."  "And the reason," Dooley went on to state, "appears to be that they are not sure whether it be better for the South that Abraham should be king, or some Successor."  For those with access to more reliable news, that successor would be Andrew Johnson.  A farmer in Nelson County expressed grave concern for the future of the South with Johnson assuming the presidency:  

We had hopes that such terms would be offered us as would not degrade or absolutely ruin us, but a sad blow has been given to their expectations by the wicked and cruel assassination of Mr Lincoln on the 14th April by a man named Jno Wilkes Booth.  Son of the famous actor and himself an actor it is said by profession.  On the same night an attempt was made to assassinate Seward also, but he is said to be recovering from his wounds.  Booth has since been pursued and killed!  What awful tragedies has this war produced!  and what frightful scenes may yet be in store for us.  Should Andrew Johnson pursue a harsh and oppressive policy.  Johnson is a Southern man a Tenesseean [sic] by birth but a renegade a low vindictive demagogue from whose foul passions and hatred of gentleman the South has every thing to fear.  The awful sacrifices of the South to result only in subjugation are frightful to think of oceans of blood and millions of treasures.  Wide spread ruin every where.  Emancipation of course is the first step which carries ruin with it to many myself among the number.

This farmer gave voice to the hopes of many by speculating that, "Providence has some wise and beneficent purpose which will be revealed in his own good time."

Can I Have A Side of Analysis With My Extended Quotes?

So, I am making major progress on my demobilization essay, but I have to admit to being incredibly frustrated with one particular source which will go nameless.  For some reason the author made the decision to quote his primary sources extensively with very little analysis.  There are sections where passage go on for anywhere between half a page to close to two pages.  It is incredibly distracting and time consuming to have to read the excerpts for no apparent reason.  When my students do this on their essays my gut reaction is to assume they are trying to achieve a minimum number of pages with the least effort.  Please don't tell me that the goal is to allow the historical players to speak for themselves.  Pull out the essential points and do your best to interpret properly and in a way that instills meaning in the source material.  Luckily, I had Wyatt-Brown's book on Southern honor to bring me back to reality.

Carlton McCarthy Remembers the Army of Northern Virginia

I finished my paper for the upcoming SCWH conference in Philly and am back to work on finishing up my project on the demobilization of the Army of Northern Virginia.  Today I read the last two chapters of Carlton McCarthy's Detailed Minutiae of Soldier Life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865.  McCarthy was born in 1847 in Richmond and served in the Richmond Howitzers during the final year of the war.  The book was published in 1882 and bares all the markings of a memoir.  It is, however, a very useful source for my project since so few soldiers left accounts of their journeys home after the surrender at Appomattox.

McCarthy provides incredibly rich descriptions of the war in 1864, but it is his account of the immediate postwar period which provides a useful perspective to the transition from peace to war and the tensions and difficulties attached to the end of slavery and the shuffling of positions in the evolving social structure.  Just outside of Richmond, McCarthy and a friend decided to work on a farm for a little money before the final leg of their journey.  There is a wonderful moment in his account where he describes a group of former slaves who took the initiative to observe the two men at work:

The negro men and women in the neighborhood, now in the full enjoyment of newly-conferred liberty, and consequently having no thought of doing any work, congregated about the garden, leaned on the fence, gazed sleepily at the toiling soldiers chuckled now and then, and occasionally explained their presence by remarking to each other, "Come here to see dem dar white folks wuckin."

There are also a few places where McCarthy pushes the limits of his reader's credulity, specifically when he claims to have seen Robert E. Lee three times along the road to Richmond.  On one occasion Lee supposedly rode by alone while McCarthy and his friend prepared breakfast on the side of the road. My guess is that a good number of soldiers remembered coming into contact with General Lee just as many white Southerners claimed to have had their homes burned by Sherman's hordes - and this includes those living outside of Georgia. McCarthy describes his transition from working on the farm to employment in Richmond in a way that anticipates many of the issues that I hope to touch on with this project as well as my overall interest in memory:

During the stay at the farm the survivors felt that they were not yet returned to civil life, but "foraging" on the neutral ground between war and peace, -- neither soldiers nor citizens.  But now, in regular employment, in a city, -- their own city! -- with so much per week and the responsibility of "finding themselves," and especially after they were informed that they must take the oath before doing anything else, they began to think that probably the war was nearing its end.  But a real good hearty war like that dies hard.  No country likes to part with a good earnest war.  It likes to talk about the war, write its history, fight its battles over and over again, and build monument after monument to commemorate its glories.

McCarthy's memoir is no doubt a reflection of his unwillingness or inability to "part with a good earnest war."

Demobilization, Reconciliation, and Johnny Yuma

About two weeks ago I shared my very rough introduction to my essay on the demobilization of the Army of Northern Virginia. I took on this project with few prior assumptions about what I would find.  Problems abound in trying to track down sources from the period immediately following Appomattox.  Few soldiers had the time or the interest in cataloging their journeys home.  Most surprising of all was the level of violence that pervaded sections of Virginia, specifically along the Blue Ridge Mountains where those Confederates who deserted during the war continued to hide.  Others headed for the hills in hopes that elements of the ANV would regroup and continue the struggle.  The sudden surrender and dispersement of the ANV taxed an already depleted landscape and placed those civilians living in close proximity to roads in a precarious situation.  Competition for limited resources inevitably led to clashes between soldiers, civilians, and the newly-freed slaves.  Couple that with the humiliation of defeat and a sense of uncertainty regarding the future and you've got yourself a potentially explosive situation.  Many of the soldiers learned of Lincoln's assassination during their travels and this only added to that uncertainty.  I was surprised by how many Confederates viewed the president's death as a loss for the South.  A farmer in Nelson County anticipated much harsher punishment for former Confederates under the new president, Andrew Johnson, while others could only speculate as to how they would be treated.

"When Johnny Comes Marching Home": The Demobilization of the Army of Northern Virginia

I've gotten quite a bit done over the past few weeks, including a very rough draft of my essay on the demobilization of the Army of Northern Virginia which will appear in Virginia at War, 1865, edited by William C. Davis and James I. Robertson (University of Kentucky Press, 2010). This has not been an easy project given the dearth of sources that specifically address the journeys home for those who surrendered at Appomattox.  I've made good use of a number of published studies that examine the social dynamics of the Army of Northern Virginia as well as community studies.  Overall, I've enjoyed playing around with our tendency to draw sharp distinctions between the war and Reconstruction; needless to say that distinction has become much more fluid for me.  Anyway, this should give you a sense of some of the questions I've been thinking about.  Feel free to offer your own observations.  More importantly, I would very much appreciate references to any primary and/or secondary sources that you think may be helpful.

Lawrence Taliaferro’s civil war should have ended on very familiar ground when he crossed the Rappahannock River by Fredericksburg shortly after the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.  Instead, Taliaferro was struck by the drastic changes to the landscape.  Abandoned and rusting war machinery littered the ground as well as the bones of old mules and horses.  The surrounding forests had been leveled to serve the needs of warring armies throughout the conflict.  As Taliaferro traversed those final twelve miles to what he hoped would be the comforts of his family’s estate he became disoriented by the numerous paths that obscured a well-known road.  Eventually he lost his way and was forced to ask for directions.  An elderly black man, who Taliaferro later learned was an ex-slave of the family, escorted the confused and tired young man to his home.

Once home Taliaferro reunited with his father and sister and shortly thereafter an older brother who also served in Lee’s army.  With only a mule, horse, and a few ex-slaves who remained with the family the Taliaferro’s began the process of rebuilding their estate by collecting old bones and iron from the surrounding area, which they resold.  The Federal army, in recognition of the family’s hospitality during the war, supplied mules and food, which no doubt furthered the process of rebuilding and perhaps even a sense of optimism that a brighter future was possible.  No amount of succor from the Federal army, however, would have blinded Lawrence Taliaferro as well as his family to the challenges they would face in the immediate future.

Live Blogging From UVA's Special Collections

It feels pretty good sitting here and getting my hands dirty in the relatively new Special Collections building at the University of Virginia.  I gave my mid-term exam this past Friday and now have the entire week off to work on gathering research materials for my project on the demobilization of the Army of Northern Virginia.  This is a fairly difficult project in terms of tracking down sources.  Luckily I found a few helpful items including a thorough diary kept by a farmer in Nelson County who commented on the passing of recently paroled Confederate soldiers as well as the end of slavery.

The biggest surprise, however, was coming across a pristine letter dated August 1, 1864.  That's right - a wonderfully detailed account of the Crater from a soldier in the 9th Alabama.  He provides vivid descriptions of the battle and aftermath as well as the handling of black Union soldiers.  There is no indication in the collection itself that such a letter exists so I plan on alerting the staff for future researchers.