Gordon B. Bonan. The Edge of Mosby's Sword: The Life of Confederate Colonel William Henry Chapman. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University, 2009. xii + 220 pp. $29.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8093-2932-8.

Christopher Phillips. The Making of a Southerner: William Barclay Napton's Private Civil War. Columbia: University of Press, 2008. x + 162 pp. $19.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-8262-1825-4.

Reviewed by A. James Fuller

Published on H-CivWar (April, 2011)

Commissioned by Martin P. Johnson (Miami University Hamilton)

Biography continues to be one of the most biography in writing about one of his ancestors fruitful means of historical study and this is made and argues that William Henry Chapman was a quite clear in The Making of a Southerner: contradictory fgure whose service as a Confeder‐ William Barclay Napton’s Private Civil War by ate cavalryman was followed later by his embrace Christopher Phillips and The Edge of Mosby’s of the Republican Party and work as an Internal Sword: The Life of Confederate Colonel William Revenue Service agent. These biographies refect Henry Chapman by Gordon B. Bonan. Phillips, a the recent trend toward biographies of more ob‐ history professor at the University of Cincinnati, scure fgures, even as new volumes dedicated to examines the life of Missouri judge William Nap‐ the famous generals and politicians continue to ton and argues that his subject’s shift from a West‐ appear. The signifcance of these two brief books ern to a Southern identity was completed by the is that they not only establish the historical roles bitterness of the Civil War. Bonan, a senior scien‐ of their subjects, but that they also shed light on tist at the National Center for Atmospheric Re‐ important topics in the history of the Civil War search in Colorado, takes up the task of historical and the South. H-Net Reviews

Phillips takes up the critical question of iden‐ fending states’ rights and slavery. Involved in par‐ tity in his biography of William Barclay Napton ty politics and intrigue, he became enmeshed in (1808-83). Napton, a native of New Jersey and internal party fghts that led to him losing his seat graduate of the College of New Jersey (later on the Missouri Supreme Court in 1851 after the ), became an attorney and voters won the right to elect their judges. He re‐ lived in Virginia before moving west to Missouri. turned to a lucrative law practice and his wealth He practiced law before turning his eforts to pub‐ enabled him to buy more slaves and travel widely lishing a newspaper, all the while cultivating con‐ in the Deep South. Throughout the 1850s, he be‐ nections with wealthy and powerful men. Napton came more committed to proslavery ideology and, became a frm believer in states’ rights and a as free labor rose to threaten the peculiar institu‐ staunch Democrat. Something of an intellectual, tion in Missouri, he turned again to politics. Ac‐ he preferred reading and theorizing to arguing tive as a delegate to conservative Democratic con‐ cases in court and this soon led him to seek other ventions and as a newspaper editor, he was disap‐ pursuits. Thus, he accepted appointment by the pointed that the party did not choose him to run Democratic governor, frst to the post of state at‐ for Congress. But his work was rewarded when he torney general, then to the state supreme court. was reelected to the state supreme court in 1856, He was well suited to life on the bench and, al‐ too late to rule on the Dred Scott case. though he complained about a judge’s onerous Throughout this period, Napton found him‐ duties and low salary, he used his position to de‐ self caught up in the political battles that so fend his political views and improve his standing deeply divided Missouri. Sectionalism in the Bor‐ in society. Napton married the daughter of anoth‐ der States brought loyal support as well as bitter er judge and they started a family on a country es‐ resentment and the judge became a leading fgure tate with a large home and slaves to serve them among the proslavery Democrats, rubbing shoul‐ and work the land. ders with men like Governor Claiborne F. Jackson. Initially, Napton saw himself as a Westerner, When the Civil War began, Napton denounced but began to develop a Southern identity through Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans while still politics, especially in relation to sectionalism, holding out hope for peace--until emancipation, slavery, and the ideology of states’ rights. Phillips the actions of Unionist militias in “harassing” him, argues that race and slavery were essential to and his wife’s death in childbirth all combined to Napton’s new identity and his views on these is‐ move him into full support for the Confederacy. sues came out of his political and legal experi‐ The experience of the war completed Napton’s ence, as his judicial defense of the “peculiar insti‐ transformation into a Southerner. The actions of tution” brought together “two strains of reason‐ Unionists in searching his house, the deaths of ing, one constitutional ... the other ... ideological” family members, and the defeat of the Confedera‐ (p. 56). Although the judge later claimed that his cy forced him to defne himself more clearly and constitutional reasoning had been consistent he chose to be a Southerner. Arguing that “Nap‐ throughout his career, Phillips contends that Nap‐ ton’s southern identity was enhanced but not dic‐ ton was not always an unwavering supporter of tated by his Confederate connection” (p. 116), slavery. Instead, his ideas evolved over time, and Phillips shows how the judge’s view of himself de‐ were rooted in particular court cases, as he veloped fully amid the fear and frustration of the moved from sometimes ruling against slavehold‐ hard times he faced following the war. More than ers to staunchly supporting their rights. Further‐ just a choice, his Southern identity was a “right” more, his views changed as sectionalism divided (p. 116) that he had won and he would cherish it the nation and he joined other Democrats in de‐ and defend it to his death. In the years after the

2 H-Net Reviews war, he supported the myth of the Lost Cause as making of Civil War memory, but he did so as a he continued his work on the bench and re‐ matter of honor. This is a fne biography, but mained active in Democratic Party politics. In‐ more attention to Southern honor would have deed, it was in those years of Reconstruction and made the author’s argument more persuasive after that he most clearly understood himself to even as it would have shifted the nature of that be a Southerner, as the “postwar politicization of argument. the war’s memory completed this southernization The contradictory life of William Henry Chap‐ process” (p. 117) for others as well as him. man (1840-1929) is the subject of his descendent Phillips’s argument is intriguing and enlight‐ Gordon Bonan’s book. Although he accepted his ening but not quite persuasive. While his evi‐ family’s romanticized view of his ancestor as a dence certainly supports his contention that Nap‐ boy, Bonan’s balanced analysis makes this a valu‐ ton’s identity shifted and became more clearly de‐ able contribution to our understanding of the Civ‐ fned through politics, he may overstate the case, il War. Arguing that historians and biographers as he does not fully establish that the judge saw have given plenty of attention to Confederate himself as a Westerner in anything more than ge‐ General John S. Mosby and the enlisted men in the ography. Even more important is that Phillips may ranks of the ranger unit that won so much fame, go too far in asserting that the judge was not cul‐ Bonan hopes to fll the gap in the literature left by turally Southern. In fact, as Phillips mentions, scholarly neglect of Mosby’s ofcers. While the New Jersey had slavery long after most other primary sources and all of the “histories of the Northern states and the school that became rangers are replete with references to William Princeton was once a bastion of Presbyterian con‐ Henry Chapman, second in command,” the young servatism that granted degrees to many Southern lieutenant colonel “is an enigma” (p. 3). students. Thus, his native state and the college in Born and raised in Luray, Virginia, on the which Napton was educated were fertile ground western side of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Chap‐ for states’ rights, proslavery, and elements of man hailed from a well-to-do family that ranked Southern culture. And, while his views did change high in the county, but beneath the highest ranks over time, Napton was quite consistent in his sup‐ of the state’s tidewater elites. With roots in the port of states’ rights and one might interpret some colonial period, the family had acquired wealth of his early rulings from the bench against slave‐ and status over several generations and, by 1860, holders as defenses of those rights rather than an William Henry Chapman’s father owned hun‐ indication of ambivalence about slavery. More im‐ dreds of acres of farmland, eleven slaves, and was portantly, however, Phillips misses a key ingredi‐ “among the richest 1 percent” in the county (p. ent of Southern culture that clearly motivated 11). Well educated at home and at the Mossy Napton and helped him forge his identity: honor. Creek Academy in Augusta County, Chapman at‐ From his early years, the judge displayed concern tended the , where he won with his honor, as he sought to avoid the shame of fame for his courage by putting out a fre in the his father’s business failure, struggled to fnd a Rotunda. While his heroic action was a lasting place and achieve gentility in Virginia, achieved contribution because it saved the school’s signa‐ success and tried to maintain it in Missouri. Nap‐ ture building, the university also made a lasting ton did begin to identify himself as a Southerner mark on Chapman. There he imbibed deeply of amid sectional politics, but he usually did so in re‐ states’ rights ideology and proslavery and seces‐ sponse to perceived slights from Northerners or sionist rhetoric. Chapman had attended the uni‐ abolitionists. He did most clearly wear the label of versity for only two years when the Civil War be‐ Southerner in the postwar years amid the myth‐

3 H-Net Reviews gan and he quickly volunteered for military ser‐ tary historians and Civil War bufs will fnd plenty vice. of information about the deeds of Mosby’s He joined the Southern Guard, a unit made Rangers, including new interpretations of some of up of ninety-nine students from the University of the battles in which they fought. Chapman’s view Virginia that began its training on the campus of one fght, for example, exonerates a Federal even before the state seceded from the Union. Af‐ cavalryman who was blamed for allowing Mosby ter this initial enlistment and service as an in‐ to escape from a well-devised trap. Amid saber fantry private, Chapman joined the Dixie Artillery charges, maneuvers at night, and dramatic raids, and, attached to General James Longstreet’s divi‐ the reader will also fnd discussion of camp life sion, fought in the frst Battle of Bull Run (Manas‐ and the horrors and hardship of war. sas) and the Peninsular Campaign. By the time of After the defeat of the Confederacy, Chapman the second Battle of Bull Run in August of 1862, he returned home a young man. Only twenty-fve was a captain and commanded the battery. He years old, he began the long struggle to rebuild fought well, winning praise and recognition for a his life in the wake of having fought on the losing timely barrage against advancing Union soldiers side of the war. He tried his hand at farming and that helped turn the tide of the battle, but the Dix‐ fathered children despite chronic poverty. Unable ie Artillery had lost more than half of its men and to make it on the land, he tried partnering with was disbanded during General Robert E. Lee’s re‐ his brother to run a tavern, but that failed. He organization of the army. After a period of service then worked as a postal clerk for a railway, which as a conscript ofcer, Chapman joined Mosby’s paid well enough but required him to be away cavalry unit of partisan rangers and was given from his family. Meanwhile, his old commander, command of Company C at the age of twenty- John Mosby, had openly declared himself a Re‐ three. In the remaining two years of the war, publican and built up a successful law practice. Chapman rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, Chapman joined Mosby in becoming a Republican becoming Mosby’s trusted second in command, as and his new political connections opened the door the rangers fought in some of the large battles as for him to become an agent for the Internal Rev‐ well as raiding in the areas of northern Virginia enue Service, a job he held until retirement. As a controlled by Union forces. revenue agent, he enforced Federal laws, especial‐ Throughout his study of Chapman’s military ly those related to tobacco and alcohol, and he service, Bonan rightly relies heavily on the work stood as a visible symbol of Northern victory to of other scholars, as there are few primary bitter Southerners who resented him. Still, he sources related to the young ofcer himself. But eventually helped perpetuate the Lost Cause, as this does not detract from the drama of good mili‐ he wrote his memoirs, attended veterans’ re‐ tary history and readers will fnd all of the excite‐ unions, and blamed James Longstreet for losing ment and exploits of battle even as the author de‐ the Battle of Gettysburg. Unlike John Mosby who votes space to broader coverage of campaigns and eventually quit attending the reunions because he to stories of Mosby and his rangers. Still, Chap‐ saw them as keeping old wounds open instead of man’s role is prominent and examined carefully. healing them, Chapman “basked in the glory of He seems to have been a good soldier and, al‐ the rangers” (p. 167), and seemed to be at his hap‐ though one cannot help but wonder if the author piest at such gatherings where he remembered is biased in favor of his ancestor, Chapman’s brav‐ the war and his service to the Confederacy. ery, intelligence, and heroic deeds seem to be By the time of his death in 1929, Chapman clearly established in the historical record. Mili‐ had indeed lived a life of contradictions and the

4 H-Net Reviews reader is persuaded by Bonan’s argument in that involved regard. One wishes for more evidence of Chap‐ man’s motivation, but perhaps the author is right being not to go beyond the evidence and speculate too states’ much. Bonan does mention the role of honor, With which was clearly manifested in the soldier’s life and career. More worrisome is how he viewed the events of the postwar period which made up the bulk of his life. One longs for more explanation about how and why Chapman became a Republi‐ can, about his views of his work for the IRS, about reunion and reconciliation and the role of race in all of those matters. This is the weakest part of the book, which is a fne study of a Civil War soldier, but is less satisfying as a full biography of the man as a whole. To be sure, Bonan does point out faws in his ancestor and clearly demonstrates a contra‐ dictory life. But more use of historical studies about the postwar period would have allowed the author to more persuasively make his case and, perhaps, answer more questions about Chapman while placing him in the complex context of the time. Taken together, these two short books demon‐ strate the continuing vitality of Civil War biogra‐ phy. They show us how studies of more obscure fgures can enlighten and intrigue even as they make contributions and raise more questions for further study. Phillips’s study delves into the ques‐ tion of Southern identity while Bonan’s work helps fll a gap in military history. Both books il‐ lustrate the importance of the postwar period and remind readers that the signifcance of the Civil War did not end in 1865 or even 1877. Indeed, the cultural memory of the war played a powerful role in the lives of both William Barclay Napton and William Henry Chapman. While more might be done with both of these fgures, these two stud‐ ies are fne examples of biography and should be read by historians of the Civil War and the South, and their brevity and readability make them good candidates for more general readers and possible adoption for classroom use.

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Citation: A. James Fuller. Review of Bonan, Gordon B. The Edge of Mosby's Sword: The Life of Confederate Colonel William Henry Chapman. ; Phillips, Christopher. The Making of a Southerner: William Barclay Napton's Private Civil War. H-CivWar, H-Net Reviews. April, 2011.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31933

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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