VOLUME 17 • NUMBER 2 • SUMMER 2017 Ohio Valley History Is a OHIO VALLEY STAFF John David Smith Gary Z
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A Collaboration of The Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky, Cincinnati Museum Center, and the University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio. VOLUME 17 • NUMBER 2 • SUMMER 2017 Ohio Valley History is a OHIO VALLEY STAFF John David Smith Gary Z. Lindgren University of North Carolina, Mitchel D. Livingston, Ph.D. collaboration of The Filson Editors Charlotte Phillip C. Long Historical Society, Louisville, LeeAnn Whites David Stradling Julia Poston Kentucky, Cincinnati Museum The Filson Historical Society University of Cincinnati Thomas H. Quinn Jr. Matthew Norman Nikki M. Taylor Anya Sanchez, MD, MBA Center, and the University of Department of History Texas Southern University Judith K. Stein, M.D. Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio. University of Cincinnati Frank Towers Steve Steinman Blue Ash College University of Calgary Carolyn Tastad Anne Drackett Thomas Cincinnati Museum Center and Book Review Editor CINCINNATI Kevin Ward The Filson Historical Society Matthew E. Stanley MUSEUM CENTER Donna Zaring are private non-profit organiza- Department of History BOARD OF TRUSTEES James M. Zimmerman and Political Science tions supported almost entirely Albany State University Chair FILSON HISTORICAL by gifts, grants, sponsorships, Edward D. Diller SOCIETY BOARD OF admission, and membership fees. Managing Editors DIRECTORS Jamie Evans Past Chair The Filson Historical Society Francie S. Hiltz President & CEO The Filson Historical Society Scott Gampfer Craig Buthod membership includes a subscrip- Cincinnati Museum Center Vice Chairs Greg D. Carmichael Chairman of the Board tion to OVH. Higher-level Cincin- Editorial Assistants Hon. Jeffrey P. Hopkins Carl M. Thomas nati Museum Center memberships Kayla Reddington Cynthia Walker Kenny also include an OVH subscription. The Filson Historical Society Rev. Damon Lynch Jr. Vice President Sam Whittaker Mary Zalla A. Stewart Lussky Back issues are $8.00. University of Cincinnati Leah Wickett General Counsel Secretary For more information on University of Cincinnati George H. Vincent W. Wayne Hancock Cincinnati Museum Center, Editorial Board Treasurer Treasurer including membership, visit Luther Adams Matthew A. Sheakley J. Walker Stites III www.cincymuseum.org or call University of Washington, Tacoma Secretary Anne Arensberg 513-287-7000 or 1-800-733-2077. Joan E. Cashin Martine Dunn David L. Armstrong Ohio State University William C. Ballard Jr. For more information on Kathleen Duval President & CEO Phillip Bond University of North Carolina Elizabeth Pierce J. McCauley Brown The Filson Historical Society, Nicole Etcheson Kenneth H. Clay including membership, visit Ball State University Trustees Marshall B. Farrer www.filsonhistorical.org Craig T. Friend Jessica Adelman Laman A. Gray Jr. North Carolina State Mark A. Casella Robert E. Kulp Jr. or call 502-635-5083. University Brian D. Coley, MD, FACR Patrick R. Northam R. Douglas Hurt Susan B. Esler Anne Brewer Ogden Purdue University E. Thomas Fernandez H. Powell Starks James C. Klotter David E. Foxx John P. Stern Georgetown College Robert L. Fregolle Jr. William M. Street Tracy K’Meyer Jane Garvey Orme Wilson III University of Louisville David L. Hausrath Clarence Lang Carrie K. Hayden Senior Research Fellow University of Kansas Jeffrey P. Hinebaugh Mark V. Wetherington David A. Nichols Katy Hollister Indiana State University Peter Horton Christopher Phillips Allison H. Kropp University of Cincinnati Brian G. Lawlor Ohio Valley History (ISSN 1544-4058) is published quarterly in Contact the editorial offices at [email protected] or Cincinnati, Ohio, and Louisville, Kentucky, by Cincinnati Museum [email protected]. Center, 1301 Western Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45203, and The Filson Historical Society, 1310 S. Third Street, Louisville, Kentucky 40208. Page composition: Michael Adkins, Ertel Publishing Postmaster, send address changes to Filson Historical Society, © Cincinnati Museum Center and The Filson Historical Society 2017 1310 S. Third St., Louisville, KY 40208. Volume 17, Number 2, Summer 2017 A Journal of the History and Culture of the Ohio Valley and the Upper South, published in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Louisville, Kentucky, by Cincinnati Museum Center and The Filson Historical Society. Contents 3 Ancient Metropolis Prehistoric Cincinnati Terry A. Barnhart 25 Voting with Their Arms Civil War Military Enlistments and the Formation of West Virginia, 1861–1865 Scott A. MacKenzie 46 Insanity in Civil War Ohio Ann Clymer Bigelow 65 Collection Essay Preserving the Photography of the Braun Sisters James J. DaMico 71 Collection Essay An Englishman in a Kentucky Regiment The Civil War Letters of Robert Winn Bao Bui 79 Review Essay Bringing the Civil War Home Local History and the Ohio Valley Patrick A. Lewis 83 Review Essay Bluegrass Music Sounds and People in Motion Lee Bidgood 88 Book Reviews 101 Announcements on the cover: Sketch of the artifacts found in the “old Indian mound” by Winthrop Sargent (c. 1794). OHIO HISTORY CONNECTION Contributors Terry A. Barnhart is a professor of history at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston. He joined the faculty at EIU in 1994, having previously worked for eleven years in the Education Division of the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus. He is the author of Ephraim George Squier and the Development of American Anthropology (2005) and American Antiquities: Revisiting the Origin of American Archaeology (2015), both published by the University of Nebraska Press. Lee Bidgood, Ph.D., is assistant professor in the Department of Appalachian Studies at East Tennessee State University. His research on bluegrass music in the Czech Republic is featured in the filmBanjo Romantika and an upcoming book from the University of Illinois Press. Ann Clymer Bigelow is a retired editor of the Current Digest of the Soviet Press. She is the author of many articles published in Ohio Valley History, includ- ing work on Ohio’s antebellum black barbers, Cincinnati’s first insane asylum, Dr. William Awl and the establishment of the Ohio Lunatic Asylum, and most recently, Dr. Benjamin Rush and his impact on the practice of medicine in the Ohio Valley. Patrick A. Lewis received a Ph.D. in history from the University of Kentucky in 2012 and is author of For Slavery and Union: Benjamin Buckner and Kentucky Loyalties in the Civil War (University Press of Kentucky, 2015). He is project director of the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition at the Kentucky Historical Society. He is currently researching the impact of WWII on historical institutions in the Ohio Valley. Scott MacKenzie received his Ph.D. in history from Auburn University in 2014. His revised book manuscript, “The Fifth Border State: Slavery and the Formation of West Virginia, 1850-1872,” will be published by West Virginia University Press. His current research interests focus on Canadian-U.S. relations during and after the Civil War. 2 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Ancient Metropolis Prehistoric Cincinnati Terry A. Barnhart o subject connected with the Ohio Valley from the late eighteenth through the late nineteenth century elicited more scientific and popu- lar interest than the prehistoric Indian mounds and earthworks that Nformed such a conspicuous feature of the landscape. The novel and curious sub- ject of American antiquities appealed to those of an empirical bent as well as those with more romantic inclinations. Those remains struck a chord of cultural nationalism in a young republic in search of native grounds and national iden- tity. What could be more original and American than the aboriginal monuments encountered during the western expansion of the nation? While little was known about the mounds and their contents, the very existence of those remains inspired cultural nationalists to expound on the subject—interpreting and appropriating them as suited their needs. Here was a grand theme for speculation, since the mounds were indisputable evidence that the supposedly New World discovered in 1492 was a continent in disguise. The vestiges of antiquity at Cincinnati were casualties of the community’s rapid growth and have long since been obliterated. Debate over the unanswered questions relating to the earthworks at Cincinnati and elsewhere in the Ohio Valley represented the embryonic beginnings of a field of investigation that eventually developed into the discipline of American archaeology. Scientific inquiry into the origin, era, and purposes of the prehis- toric remains at Cincinnati constituted an important if largely forgotten part of an emerging scientific discourse. Historians have noted the distant origins of American archaeology and its place within American intellectual and cultural history. They have positioned the early literature on the mounds within the social, political, and cultural con- texts that shaped it. Yet, despite that critical historiography, a good portion of the secondary literature is nonetheless skewed relative to the question of the identity of mound-building peoples and their supposed capabilities. All too often it is the mythmakers in archaeology’s past, those who denied that the mounds were of an indigenous or aboriginal origin, who receive the lion’s share of attention, at the expense of the more empirical observers who saw no need to assign an exotic origin to the Mound Builders. Writers like Winthrop Sargent, Benjamin Smith Barton, George Turner, and Daniel Drake, however, saw no reason to assign the mounds anything other than an indigenous origin. Their commentaries on the ancient remains at Cincinnati