A Biographical Sketch of Isaac Peace Rodman Brigadier General Robert E
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University of Rhode Island DigitalCommons@URI Special Collections Publications (Miscellaneous) Special Collections 2011 South Kingstown’s Own: A Biographical Sketch of Isaac Peace Rodman Brigadier General Robert E. Gough Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/sc_pubs Part of the Military History Commons, Political History Commons, Social History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Gough, Robert E., "South Kingstown’s Own: A Biographical Sketch of Isaac Peace Rodman Brigadier General" (2011). Special Collections Publications (Miscellaneous). Paper 20. http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/sc_pubs/20 This Text is brought to you for free and open access by the Special Collections at DigitalCommons@URI. It has been accepted for inclusion in Special Collections Publications (Miscellaneous) by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@URI. For more information, please contact [email protected]. South Kingstown’s Own A Biographical Sketch of Isaac Peace Rodman Brigadier General Dr. Robert E. Gough, Professor Emeritus Dean of Academic Programs (retired) College of Agriculture, Montana State University Manuscript © 2011 by Robert E. Gough All Rights Reserved Acknowledgements A work that spans 30 years in the making owes much to many folks who helped along the way and to name only a few seems at once a travesty and a necessity. To my daughter Amy I owe much of the more recent leg work in tracking down local newspaper pieces, without which so much of the primary source material and local history flavor included would not have been possible. To the folks at the Rhode Island Historical Society Library, especially Ms. Lee Teverow, reference librarian, I am grateful for services in running down pertinent sources of Rodman local history, including the letter from Rodman to Governor Sprague and for furnishing to me copies of same. To my long time friend Colonel Charles T. Knowles, U.S. Army (Retired), whose interest in the Civil War era initially sparked my own 40 years ago and who has been a mentor and stalwart bearer of encouragement to me through the years. It was he who encouraged me to no small degree to finish this work and furnished some background references to help accomplish the task. Finally, but not at all least, I owe my greatest thanks to my wife Cheryl, not only for her strong encouragement during my compilation of this biography but to her seemingly endless hours of editing, proofing, and formatting the work to make it most presentable. As is true for all works, none are ever really complete. So it is with this volume. There is no doubt much primary source material available that needs only to be dug out of dusty shelves and copied from old microfilm. But I have done as much as my time will allow and I believe strongly that this is the most complete single source of biographical material on General Rodman. In compiling the work we noticed a few minor and obvious typographical errors which I hope the reader will forgive. Readers may also note that actions of some battles are not always clear. That is because the multiple sources used give varying accounts of timelines and actions taken from individual perspectives. In those cases I tried to use the most consistent accounts of actions. Again, my hope is that the reader will abide these shortcomings. I take full responsibility for any and all shortcomings and errors in this work. Bob Gough Bozeman, Montana April, 2011 ii Introduction In the kindling warmth of early spring days just after the war my grandfather and I would harvest dandelions for salads from Art Plourde’s cow pastures behind Peace Dale School. We crossed over Emmet’s Lane, then an overgrown cart path, and worked our way northeast among fat Holsteins and over the rolling green fields that once were part of John Hazard’s farm. The dandelions grew huge and lush in those well-manured fields and we had our basket full by the time we got to a small family cemetery that lay against the tree- line of oaks and blueberries. The plot was walled with large, finely-wrought rectangular granite slabs likely drilled from the scattered meadow stones all around. Three offset stones were set perpendicular to the others and ran clear through the wall, protruding on each side of it to form steps for visitors to this quiet place. A large white obelisk stood above all other stones. I marveled at it standing tall and straight in the spring sunshine, the lichen dappled marble, the edges of its raised and graved letters smoothed and rounded by time and salt air. This was a serene plot untouched by vandals; a little piece of ground from another time. A place where you left your talking and the 20th century outside the wall. Once you entered, a feeling welled up from deep inside of you that struck you dumb, and words seemed trivial and unneeded. With a young boy’s curiosity I made straight for the steps when my grandfather, with great reverence, spoke softly “That’s where the general is buried.” “The general? What general?”was my surprised reply. “General Rodman. He was a great general in the Civil War.” I had never heard of him in my school classes. How could it be that a great general from my hometown was never mentioned, not once, in all of my school years? As I climbed the steps I heard a voice softly say: “Never step on the graves.” The memories of the Civil War continue to live on in us, more deeply sanguine than those of any other war except, perhaps, World War II and Vietnam. This is not to belittle the tragedies of other wars but to reinforce the powerful impact of the Civil War on this nation. Nearly six generations have passed since that desperate war, yet still today thousands join re-enactment groups that spend days re-living the battles of Gettysburg and Antietam, among others. Perhaps it is those “mystic chords of memory” that President Lincoln recalled that bind us so inextricably to that war. To be sure, America lost a greater part of its population (1.988%) to death in that war than in any other war in our history. The next closest, with 0.899% of the population killed, was the American Revolution. Indeed, on average, 599 American boys were killed every day in the Civil War, and that trauma has become part of the American psyche. Like all national calamities, the Civil War did not “begin” on a certain day, and it perhaps has never really ended. Its roots stretch far back, even to a time before the American Revolution when northern abolitionists, led strongly by the Quakers, appealed to slave holders to free their chattel on moral grounds. The American Revolution, fought for liberty and the right of colonies to govern themselves added fuel to the fire. How could a government who fought for those principles enslave another while at the same time support the right of some states iii to outlaw slavery and others to maintain it? How could a government who declared that “all men are created equal” then say that, well, some are more equal than others, to paraphrase George Orwell? John Adams, George Washington, and other founding fathers worried about the prospect of civil war when they supported the Compromise of 1790. At that time Southern states had demanded that the nation’s capitol be moved farther south from Philadelphia and land for a new site would be donated by two slave states—Maryland and Virginia, if northern states would not raise the issue of the abolition of slavery. All seemed fair and the question was averted, but not buried, for a few decades. The government compromised again on the slavery issue with the Missouri Compromise of 1820, signed into law by President Monroe. The document prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of 36° 30’ north latitude, except in Missouri, which was allowed entry as a slave state. Alabama had been admitted to the union in 1819 as a slave state, keeping the balance of free and slave states in check. Meanwhile, to admit Missouri as a slave state would tip the voting balance in the senate, with two votes per state to the south. To counter that, northerners wanted Maine to enter the union as a free state, in 1820. A worried and farsighted Thomas Jefferson warned that adaption of the compromise line would eventually split the country and civil war would ensue. The slavery question continued to simmer; Congress continued to compromise. The Texas Annexation Resolution extended the compromise line through the Texas Territory and New Mexico Territory, hence extending slavery into those areas. Northerners were vexed. The Compromise of 1850 followed the end of the Mexican War and diffused for four years the tension between northern and southern states over the slavery issue. Most importantly, it avoided, or rather in the end, delayed Civil War. Texas was offered debt relief, annexation of land for its panhandle, and control of El Paso if it dropped its claim over the New Mexico Territory, meaning slavery would not be extended into that territory. California would enter the union as a free state instead of being split along the old compromise line of 1820 and by the Wilmot Proviso. As final sweeteners for the south, both New Mexico Territory and Utah Territory were granted popular sovereignty to choose by vote whether to become slave or free, the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law were strengthened, giving slaveholders more power to recover their slaves who had escaped to non-slave states, and slavery would be maintained in the nation’s capitol.