January 1, 1863

The Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January 1, 1863, lacked Lincoln's usual poetic flourish. The proclamation was a war measure - aimed at hastening the end of the rebellion. Still, it changed the meaning of the war and added to the Union cause by putting emancipation on the table.

Below is the text of the document. I believe it makes for good reading on this first day of 2013.

By the President of the United States of America:

A Proclamation.

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

"That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States."

Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

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 first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

Happy New Year from Cosmic America!

Visualizing Emancipation

Yesterday's map post stirred up a few conversations here and elsewhere about the possibilities of visualizing data. This inspired me to direct all Cosmic Americans to the digital scholarship coming out of the University of Richmond. I am especially intrigued by the Visualizing Emancipation component of their Digital Scholarship Lab. There is a comprehensive timeline and you can set parameters with a number of different emancipation events. Head on over and check it out - you may be surprised by what you find.

K

Worse Than Slavery

I am teaching this image in my course on Reconstruction this winter. Note the individuals: a black family cowers beneath the clasping hands of the White League and the KKK. In the distance a lynched man hangs from a tree. The captions read: "The Union as it Was," "This is a White Man's Government," "The Lost Cause,"  and "Worse than Slavery." What are your thoughts?

To My Old Master

Jourdan Anderson, a freedman from Tennessee, had plenty to say to former master. In August 1865, from his new home in Ohio, Anderson dictated a letter to Colonel P. H. Anderson of Big Springs dictating a few terms for his potential future employment and other arrangements. How things change over the course of a few years. As dictated:

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the[266] folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq.,[267] Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

Jourdon Anderson

The Right to Land

What did freedom mean to former slaves in the Reconstruction South? A number of things come to mind. Freedom meant the stability of family, a marriage recognized by the state, and children that could not be sold. Freedom also meant the ownership of one's labor and the means though which to make way in the world.

A common misconception among southern whites, according to historian Eric Foner in his book Nothing But Freedom, was that freedom for blacks meant the escape from all labor. Black people understood slavery not as toil, but as unrequited toil, and freedom meant having a place whereby they could reap the fruits of their labor.

Freedmen then, based their claim to land on the notion of unrequited labor. Planters had accumulated their land illegitimately. As former slaves understood their contribution to the development of the American economy, they also claimed their right to ownership of the land they had worked to improve.

Freedman Bayley Wyat summed up his experiences and his justifications in 1868. The speech is written in dialect (transcribed from the original...dialect always makes me cringe a little) and protests the eviction of blacks from a Virginia contraband camp two years earlier

We has a right to the land where we are locates. For why? I tell you. Our wives, our children, our husbands, has been sold over and over again to purchase the lands we now locates upon, for that reason we have a divine right to the land...and den didn't we clear the land, and de crops ob corn, ob rice, ob sugar, ob everything. And den didn't dem large cities in de North grow up on de cotton and de sugars and de rice dat we made? I say dey has grown rich, and my people is poor.

For Wyat, southern planters and northern industrialists are equally complicit in former slaves' precarious situation, and thus owe them payment for generations of uncompensated servitude. Of course we all know that most turned a deaf ear to these demands for restitution, and thus historians have noted a glaring failure of Reconstruction. One could then define emancipation as little more than the creation of a landless proletariat, free to do nothing but labor.

My question to you: is this too hard a judgment?

A New Yorker's Verse

The Cosmic America files are filled with Civil War era poetry. Some epic, some heroic, but much of it banal, trite. Now and again, little snippets of poetry resound with meaning - a few lines crystallize what the war was about in verse...at least for some who shouldered muskets and marched off to fight for a cause.

In terms of emancipation - few in the north enlisted with that in mind. It was only after the war that the destruction of the institution rang true as the moral equivalent of Union. Retrospectively, veterans included emancipation as a fundamental component of their cause.

In 1905, an aging New York veteran recalled such sentiment at a Grand Army of the Republic meeting in Brooklyn. Recorded in the post's minute book, these few short lines tidily joined the twin themes of Union and emancipation.

In God’s name let us march to the mutinous South
       I shall fall, as will many of you
But halt not till slavery’s rebellion shall cease –
       Till the Father of Waters shall flow
Unviewed by a slave form Itasca Lake
       To the far Gulf of Mexico


Striking a tone of moralizing self-righteousness, this short piece nevertheless indicated that an emancipationist memory lived on with the veterans who had determined that the Union should survive - ultimately, without slavery.

K

A Thought (or two) on Turning Points

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

Gettysburg, my place of residence for the next few days, is a wonderful place to contemplate turning points. Not because I believe the battlefield represents one (or the, as it were), but precisely because the field persists as the culmination of the Confederate war effort in public memory - as the turning point of the Civil War.

I find this troubling primarily because nobody thought this in July 1863. The "high water mark" is a post war construction - written into history by those looking retrospectively for the exact moment when the Rebel cause came at last crashing down...never to rise again. I suppose if you tilt your head to the side, squint, and ignore 1864 entirely, you might arrive at a similar conclusion. But even then the logic is more than slightly flawed.

It might be instructive at this juncture to provide my definition of Civil War turning points - so as not to ruffle too many "high water mark" feathers. A turning point represents a contemporary sea change in opinion, attitude, strategy, or tactics. The battle of Gettysburg does not suggest this to me - nor did it suggest it to the soldiers who fought there (for the most part).

As part of the Civil War Institute Conference, I will be speaking on - and leading a discussion about - turning points in 1862. My talk, titled - strangely enough, 1862: A Year of Turning Points, will cover topics from Ironclads to Emancipation...but not the Battle of Gettysburg  There is also an analytical component to the talk that might surprise the audience. I do not want to give away too much before the fact, so I will save the slam dunk for the debriefing next week.

Until then - be sure to follow the Civil War Institute Twitter feed at #cwi1862 and as always - Peace,

Keith

Juneteenth

Greetings Cosmic Americans and happy Juneteenth to all. If you did not already know, a Senator in Texas (where Juneteenth originated) is calling for a national holiday to commemorate emancipation. What do you think?

Peace,
Keith

Union, Emancipation, and the Observance of Lincoln's Birthday

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

There are those among us who persist in decrying Union veterans for whitewashing Civil War commemoration in the name of reconciliation. I have provided a number of examples to the contrary right here on Cosmic America - but from time to time feel the need to add another voice to illustrate what I have been arguing for some time: Union veterans commemorated emancipation right alongside Union as a virtuous cause.

Of course, they did so after the war - between 1861-65 Union was paramount, and the extrication of slavery helped in the effort to further this cause. So, as the war progressed, more and more soldiers agreed that destroying the institution was a good idea.

Does this mean that white soldiers embraced black people as equals? No it most certainly does not. Racism prevailed among nearly all white people in the nineteenth century. But to many, the war illustrated that the Union was on the right side of history - that despotism was on the way out (worldwide) and that freedoms promised by the "last best hope of earth" and secured by Union victory proved emancipation was the right move.

So was slavery and emancipation written out of Civil War memory? Not if the GAR could help it. Here is a short excerpt from a 1909 celebration of their commander-in-chief's 100th birthday:

He was inspired of God, as Moses was inspired; that was why he could see clear through the maze, and select the very means which would extricate slavery and division and renew union and prosperity. Knowing he was right, he never changed his principles or policies. The whole gigantic problem was solved exactly as he predicted. The house ceased to be divided; the Union was forever welded together, and the sign was lifted up high on the wall, which tells all usurpers what it will cost if one class ever attempts to enslave any portion of the American people. Lincoln made Liberty of the people immortal. Had Lincoln's foresight betrayed him, the autocrats of Europe would have become more despotic. The victory which Lincoln achieved for the people has marched on like 'John Brown's soul,' dimming every sceptre, undermining every throne. That victory of the people over oligarchy means eventually exile for all autocrats. Lincoln has nailed to the sky where all the world reads, 'The right of the people everywhere to govern themselves.'

Union and Emancipation dominated postwar commemoration in the North, despite racist attitudes.

Peace,

Keith

The Union Forever!

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

Just a short note today to illustrate something that I believe is worthy of further discussion. Most of us can agree with President Lincoln...that slavery was somehow the cause of the war. One of my former professors said it best when he wrote  on the blackboard on the first day of Civil War class: "It was slavery - stupid."

But with all the talk about slavery - both the reasonable informed discussions and the back and forth bang-your-head-against-the-wall (usually pointless) arguments with neo-Confederates, one thing sometimes slips beneath the radar.

The overwhelming number of northern soldiers enlisted to fight for the preservation of Union. The destruction of slavery did not, for the most part, compel them to take up arms.  During the war, many saw the demise of the institution as a great way to undermine the Rebels' war effort...and after the war, Union veterans' sense of moralizing self-righteousness in regard to their participation in emancipation went a long way to show the world that theirs had been the noblest of efforts.

Perhaps the notion of Union is far to abstract for 21st century folks to really grasp. Even historian Barbara Fields has suggested that 19th century soldiers did not consider Union worth fighting and dying for - implying that emancipation was the only truly noble cause. Sure, emancipation was a noble cause indeed...and many came to see it that way. But it was Union that stirred patriots' hearts in 1861.

Peace,

Keith

A Letter to Mrs. Lee

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

A significant component of what can be best called the Lee myth is his attitude towards slavery. You hear it all the time at conferences, roundtables, in print, and on the battlefield - Robert E. Lee was opposed to slavery. Much of this part of the overall myth stems from a letter Lee wrote his wife in December 1856 while serving in the U. S. Cavalry in Texas.

December 27, 1856 - I was much pleased the with President's message. His views of the systematic and progressive efforts of certain people at the North to interfere with and change the domestic institutions of the South are truthfully and faithfully expressed. The consequences of their plans and purposes are also clearly set forth. These people must be aware that their object is both unlawful and foreign to them and to their duty, and that this institution, for which they are irresponsible and non-accountable, can only be changed by them through the agency of a civil and servile war. There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things. How long their servitude may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild and melting influences of Christianity than from the storm and tempest of fiery controversy. This influence, though slow, is sure. The doctrines and miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years to convert but a small portion of the human race, and even among Christian nations what gross errors still exist! While we see the course of the final abolition of human slavery is still onward, and give it the aid of our prayers, let us leave the progress as well as the results in the hands of Him who, chooses to work by slow influences, and with whom a thousand years are but as a single day. Although the abolitionist must know this, must know that he has neither the right not the power of operating, except by moral means; that to benefit the slave he must not excite angry feelings in the master; that, although he may not approve the mode by which Providence accomplishes its purpose, the results will be the same; and that the reason he gives for interference in matters he has no concern with, holds good for every kind of interference with our neighbor, -still, I fear he will persevere in his evil course. . . . Is it not strange that the descendants of those Pilgrim Fathers who crossed the Atlantic to preserve their own freedom have always proved the most intolerant of the spiritual liberty of others?

Alan Nolan argued in his excellent book, Lee Considered, that Lee's words are too often taken as gospel. They are true because he said them. But when examined in context, one could begin to chip away at the myth that rests on this so-called Lee gospel. In regard to the letter. As an abstraction, it makes sense that Lee would find slavery troubling. He was an educated and enlightened individual - and was not alone among other educated and enlightened individuals when it came to moral questions concerning slavery.

But in reality, Lee was perfectly comfortable with the southern institution and felt that Providence would decide when the time was right for slavery to meet its end. Later, Lee even stated that slavery was "the best [relationship] that can exist between the white and black races while intermingled as at present in this country."

Lee belonged to an aristocratic slave-holding family in a society where slavery had long existed and was taken for granted. When northern agitation threatened his society both before and during the war, including threats to the institution of slavery, Lee let his dissatisfaction be known. Only after the war did he claim he was always in support of emancipation.

Peace,

Keith

PS - If you found this and other Cosmic America posts intriguing, please join me on Facebook - we talk about imagery (northern and southern), mythology, the sesquicentennial, and all kinds of fun stuff.

Ron Paul on Slavery and the Civil War

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

I initially hesitated before I posted this because the last thing I want is for this space to become a political battleground. The ensuing presidential election should once again bring out the fear and paranoia reminiscent of 2008 - mudslinging and accusations of presidential candidates walking arm in arm with every political extremist from Hitler to Chairman Mao. I personally find this troubling and at best counter- productive. Remember what John Adams once said: "There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution."

Anyway - enough about that. In the end I thought it was my civic duty to point out to those who don't already know - presidential hopeful Ron Paul has an alarmingly simplistic view of slavery, emancipation, and the Civil War. "We could have just bought them and freed them" doesn't quite cut it. I am just going to wager a guess that most slave owners weren't selling, and even if they did, what would they have done with millions of former slaves? The economic and social fabric of the slave holding part of the nation was far to bound to the institution to simply let it go for a price.

In fact - President Lincoln floated this idea to slaveholders in the border states in July 1862. The plan included gradual emancipation, compensation, and eventually colonization of former slaves. The borders state slaveholders didn't go for it.

Thanks anyway, Ron. And by the way...why is D. L. Hugley on CNN and really...what the hell is he talking about?

Peace,
Keith

The Guilty Cause of the Whole Mischief

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

From our perspective, slavery caused the Civil War. This is more or less apparent to anyone who cares to look at the documentary evidence from the secession crisis. Well, this notion is apparent for most of us anyway. There is of course a contingent among the good citizens of the United States who hold fast to the idea that the war was precipitated by some vague notion of protecting state rights - the blame for secession and the ensuing conflict thus resting squarely on the shoulders of tyrannical northern demagogues intent of preventing southerners from carrying out said rights...whatever they might be.

But the rest of us get it. As Abraham Lincoln said in his Second Inaugural Address on March 4, 1865, "All knew that this interest [slavery] was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war."

Fine. But over the past years, many of my students and a host of others have been puzzled by a salient notion: the overwhelming number of Union soldiers did not go to war to put an end to this rather conspicuous institution. If slavery threatened to destroy the country, as it seemed to be doing in a hasty fashion, why, in 1861, were northern soldiers not intent on destroying the cause of this mighty scourge? As the detractors of the "slavery as a cause" argument will happily tell you, (most) Yankees set off to war thinking very little of freeing slaves. Could one then conclude that northerners at arms did not believe that the war was over slavery?

This logic is about as convoluted as it gets - yet I hear it all the time (it's right up there with the idea that the war could not have been about slavery because most Confederates did not own any slaves). While it is certainly true that Union soldiers fought overwhelmingly to preserve the nation (see Gary Gallagher's The Union War on this one), they did so knowing full well (or at the very least - perceiving) that a "slavocracy," as they would have called it, was hell bent on destroying the republic. Abolitionists - those who sought to destroy slavery from the very beginning - were a tiny minority. Generally speaking, as the war went on, soldiers saw emancipation as a means to an end - in effect freeing slaves as a crippling blow to the Confederate war effort. Only when the war was over did Union veterans hail emancipation as (one of) the war's great causes. Their celebratory efforts were full of nods to freedom and Union.

But despite the changing nature of how Union soldiers warmed to emancipation, they could certainly tell you what the war was all about. As Union general Carl Schurtz wrote in his memoirs, loyal soldiers of the republic knew all along that slavery was indeed the "guilty cause of the whole mischief."

Peace,

Keith

The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

I have thinking quite a bit these days about the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln's role as commander-in-chief, and the legacy of emancipation during the sesquicentennial. I recently revisited a very good book - The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views, by Harold Holzer, Edna Greene Medford, and Frank J. Williams.

Fittingly, the authors choose to open their absorbing study of the Emancipation Proclamation with the words of Frederick Douglass – one of the most compelling figures of nineteenth-century United States history – to illustrate the varied reactions to a document that has traveled a “bumpy historiographical road.” Praising Abraham Lincoln’s (preliminary) Emancipation Proclamation as a “righteous decree” while questioning the president’s “hesitating and forbearing” caution, Douglass was both admirer and critic – a reaction that the authors suggest presaged the “complicated, almost schizophrenic, response [the document] has elicited.” As the authors point out, since 1862, analysis of the Emancipation Proclamation has developed into two opposing camps – one highlighting the document as the crowning achievement of Lincoln the Great Emancipator, the other focusing on the proclamation as an act of wartime desperation issued from the pen of a racist president.

To their credit, the authors do not simply argue from the comfortable (and well worn) position of one side of the historiographical debate or the other. Rather, they tap into contemporary reactions issued from diverse groups, including, significantly, those who were the subject of Lincoln’s decree – slaves – to illustrate the importance of the widely ranging series of responses, interpretations, and efforts of commemoration. While the subtitle of this book could imply a sustained debate contesting the contemporary meaning and legacy of the Emancipation Proclamation, the three contributors to The Emancipation Proclamation provide complementary arguments - each individual analysis accenting a particular context.

Edna Greene Medford examines how black Americans derived meaning from a document beyond the author’s intentions and seized every opportunity as active agents in freedom, Frank J. Williams argues that Lincoln’s genius for the law provided the means to maneuver around the inherent conflict between his constitutional obligations and his hatred of slavery, and Harold Holzer maintains that the “central document” of Lincoln’s administration gained prominence not during his lifetime, but through artistic representation and Lincoln iconography in the post-war realm of public memory. The overall result is a single volume that both admonishes reductionism and eschews present-minded critique.

Holzer, Medford, and Williams, together with eminent historian John Hope Franklin, who provides the foreword, should be applauded for collaborating on this succinct, well documented, and thought provoking study. Perhaps, a more nuanced analysis discussing the varied responses of “common” Civil War soldiers would further strengthen this volume by illustrating how the issues of slavery and emancipation reached white America beyond the upper echelons of politics and the military. This criticism aside, students of the era will greatly benefit from a collection of essays that illustrates how the Emancipation Proclamation was, in the words of Lincoln, “the great event of the nineteenth century.”

Peace,

Keith

Civil War Reenactors - the 2nd Vermont discusses Union, Emancipation, and Uncle Tom's Cabin

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

Yesterday I had a lovely time in Woodland Hills, California. Why on Earth would I go there, you ask? Well, I often find reasons to drive to the Valley - and this was one of them. Yesterday I attended a Civil War reenactment at Pierce College. I spent a lot of time talking with reenactors from both sides - trying to get a little insight in to what makes these guys tick.

Recently, some overly harsh criticism has boiled over from the academic world - I speak of one person, really - Civil War historian Glenn Lafantasie seems to think that reenactors are generally cut from the same cloth. I will not get in to too many details - let's just say that Lafantasie doesn't have to jump far from reenactors to right-wing extremism. Read his article and draw your own conclusions HERE, and for good measure, you should also check out this rebuttal HERE.

But at any rate - I did not come across any wing-nuts, whackjobs, or extremists this weekend. I did however meet a lot of men and women (and....something I did not expect, quite a few women reenacting as soldiers) who take understanding Americans at war in the nineteenth century pretty seriously. I sat in on and contributed to some discussions of both the issues at stake during the Civil War as well as military topics - weaponry, accoutrement, and tactics.

Now if you think that grown men and women dressing up and playing soldier is just a little strange, well....I am not going to disagree with you. I find it hard to imagine myself trying to replicate the look, feel and dare I say...attitude of the nineteenth century - if only because I live imbued with 21st century sensibilities, and thus striving for authenticity, as many reenactors do, would seem to me - not even remotely possible.

But I speak only for myself - this in no way implies that I will stand in judgment of reenactors or reenacting, as does my colleague Dr. Lafantasie. If yesterday's experience evidenced anything - it was that these people take great care to inform the general public about a wide range of Civil War topics. One might not agree with everything said...there was plenty of room for debate. But to my great relief I found that most welcomed discussion, embraced it, in fact.

Huzzah to you my reenacting friends!

Peace,
Keith

PS - there is a documentary currently in production that focuses on this very intriguing culture - stay tuned for The Reenactors.

On To Richmond! Sesquicentennial Event Calendar

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

I am always up for a plug! So here you go. Commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and Emancipation, The On To Richmond! folks have put together a first-rate website - complete with a calendar section to fill you in on all the sesquicentennial goings-on over the next few years.

I suppose I could go on about the site and post the links myself - but they have already done a mighty fine job....so I took the liberty of copying this straight from On To Richmond!


"Few areas of the United States were affected like the Richmond Region. Richmond was “ground zero” during the Civil War -- the capital of the Confederacy and the scene of several major battles. The Richmond Region became the backdrop for a multitude of historical events that changed the face of our nation.

We invite you to visit our beautiful Virginia Civil War sites , museums, historic homes, battlefield parks, cemeteries, slave-trade sites, and interpretive trails and walking tours . Enjoy some of America’s most authentic and compelling historical experiences -- in a modern destination with world-class dining, lodging, shopping and entertainment. Start planning your trip today!"

This is worth a look my friends - Richmond should be a hotbed of sesquicentennial activity for the next few years. If you are in the area - you won't want to miss the fun. Of course, I will expect a full report. You know I am all about the experience - and I can't always get to Richmond. So if you find yourself at something and you think I need to know about it - by all means...fill me in.

Peace,

Keith

Historians Barbara Fields and James McPherson on Lincoln the Emancipator

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

Well as we know, historians disagree on just about everything. And it's a good thing too - if we didn't - there would only be one book on the Civil War...we would all read it...and that would be it. Not too exciting. The subject of "who freed the slaves" generally stirs up a lively debate - here's what two prominent scholars have to say about it.

Columbia University historian Barbara Fields insists that Lincoln’s dedication to freedom was superficial and never strayed from the confines of war necessity. Relying heavily on the oft-quoted words of Lincoln himself, Fields reminds readers that the president would have eagerly saved the Union “without freeing any slave.”

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Fields attempts to show how Lincoln adopted a strictly limited policy of emancipation only as an attack on the Confederacy’s ability to wage war. A great many bondsmen, including those enslaved in loyal states or those residing in areas already occupied by United States forces, remained enslaved. Further, those laboring deep in the Confederacy, far from liberating Union lines, remained beyond the reach of the proclamation’s power. Fields admits that the Emancipation Proclamation was significant, but rather than illustrating a crucial development with roots in Republican ideology, she asserts that slaves provided the impetus for such a policy through self-emancipation. The slaves themselves forced the issue and convinced Republicans to attack the institution where it existed. “No human alive,” she comments, “could have held back the tide that swept toward freedom.”

[caption id="attachment_620" align="alignleft" width="129" caption="James M. McPerson"][/caption]

Princeton University historian James McPherson answers this challenge by pointing out that Lincoln and the Republican Party were not only committed to thwarting the expansion of slavery into the territories, but also that containment was the “first vital step toward placing it in the course of ultimate extinction.” Well before the outbreak of war, McPherson illustrates, Lincoln made it abundantly clear that a man governing another man was despotism, that the relation of masters and slave was a violation of the principle of equality embedded in the founding documents, and that the slave system undermined the “principles of progress.” Although Lincoln knew he lacked the authority to tamper with slavery where it already existed, he hoped that when the Union became either “all one thing or all the other,” that slavery would have met its demise. McPherson adds a further cautionary note in answer to Fields’s assertion of an inevitable “sweeping tide.” Her conclusions depend on a Union victory – a victory hardly foreordained in 1861.

Now you know I want your opinion - so sound off!

Peace,

Keith

Who Freed the Slaves?

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

So - on to the matter at hand. Who freed the slaves? Why that's simple right? It was Abraham Lincoln, the great emancipator.....right? I mean....right?

Not so fast amigos. As usual, thing can get a little more complicated when you look a little closer at the historical record. Oh sure, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation all right, which technically freed all slaves who were (as of January 1, 1863) living in states currently in rebellion. (NOTE: The Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to slaves in the border states - not to mention...the Rebs were not exactly willing to comply with the proclamation, either). As historians like James McPherson note, the Proclamation was a crucial step in a series of actions taken against the institution. But is there more to the story?

Historians like Barbara Fields and Ira Berlin think so. They talk a lot about what they refer to as "self emancipation." Yep - it's exactly what it sounds like. Slaves, not just sitting around waiting to be freed by northern politicians, simply left. That's it. They saw an opportunity and took it. Seeking freedom for themselves, these men and women walked away from the farms and plantations were they had been held in bondage and fled to Union lines. Many of them ended up in contraband camps (more on these later) and thousands would eventually join Union army USCT Units - all black (led by white officers) regiments of fighting men (more on these guys later too).

Well, I am not really one for either/or questions. Of course there is validity to both bottom up and top down analyses of emancipation. Slaves (now former slaves) took action, and, while the Emancipation Proclamation did not really free anyone on day one, it certainly changed the meaning and direction of the war.

But here's some food for thought for a Saturday morning. What about the United States Army? Don't they get any credit? Robert Gould Shaw, immortalized by the film Glory, said it best when he noted in 1863 (insert affected Boston accent here) after hearing of the Proclamation, that it was all well and good but it really made little difference. Writing his mother - "For my part I can't see what practical good it can do now. Wherever our army has been, there remain no slaves, and the proclamation won't free them where we don't go."

So, while presidential proclamations and self emancipation were significant aspects of the demise of slavery in the South, without the army...nada. Remember - the slaves held in places that saw no pronounced military presence (like Alabama and Texas) remained slaves until the end of the war.

So with that I will sign off until Monday - Please leave a comment whether you agree with me or not. I promise to be nice :)

Peace,
Keith