VOLUME 17 • NUMBER 2 • SUMMER 2017 Ohio Valley History Is a OHIO VALLEY STAFF John David Smith Gary Z

Home , Edwin Hamilton Davis, Henry Marie Brackenridge, Jeremy Belknap, One Sided Story, Wheeling Convention, Wheeling Jamboree

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 [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, including 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 popular interest than the prehistoric Indian mounds and earthworks that Nformed such a conspicuous feature of the landscape. The novel and curious subject 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 identity. 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 prehistoric 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 contexts 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 are notable cases in point.

SUMMER 2017 3 ANCIENT METROPOLIS

So too is Robert Clarke’s spirited defense of the authenticity of the Cincinnati Tablet, recovered from a local mound in 1841, which similarly exemplifies rational thought in interpreting evidence.1

Reconstructed map of the Cincinnati mounds and earthworks by Charles Whittlesey. Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, Volume 3 (Smithsonian Institution, 1852). SMITHSONIAN LIBRARIES

When Euro-Americans first encountered the upper plain of what is today Cincinnati, it was covered by a complex of prehistoric earthworks. In the Transactions of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, in 1837, William Henry Harrison recalled that when, as a young army officer stationed at Fort Hamilton, he first saw the site, it was covered with low embankments of earth. Harrison was a member of the reconnaissance party accompanying Maj. Gen. Anthony Wayne during an examination of the earthworks in August 1793. “The number and variety of figures in which these lines were drawn, was almost endless.… Many so faint, indeed, as scarcely to be followed, and often for a considerable distance entirely obliterated, but by careful examination, and following the direction, they could again be found.” He attributed that condition to two causes. Some of the earthen embankments had been degraded from their original height and configurations through long occupancy and the continuous cultivation of the soil by a people other than those who had originally constructed them. Harrison believed more recent inhabitants of the site were “the conquerors of the original possessors.” Second, the flooding of the Ohio and Miami Rivers periodically inundated the site, which in due course undoubtedly damaged some of the earthworks and probably destroyed others.2

4 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY TERRY A. BARNHART

Inquiries into the leading questions concerning the Cincinnati earthworks began soon after the beginning of organized settlement. The historically conscious and scientifically inclined Winthrop Sargent—secretary of the Northwest Territory of the United States and a member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Massachusetts Historical Society—directed public attention to the need to study the mounds and earthworks whose existence was increasingly threatened by the spread of settlement. In a letter to William Maxwell that appeared in Maxwell’s September 1794 Centinel of the North-Western Territory, Sargent struck a philosophical note in ponder- ing the subject. Attempting to answer the mooted questions concerning the identity, antiquity, and fate of the enigmatic peoples who built the mounds, Sargent affirmed, was a duty that the present generation of westerners owed their descendants no less than to the memory of the ancient peoples who occupied the region Winthrop Sargent (1753-1820). before them. OHIO HISTORY CONNECTION

In the future page of the faithful historian[,] posterity will with pleasure trace the rise and progress of settlement—the arts and sciences &c. &c. in this western world; the observation[s] of their fathers will furnish the proper documents—more however is expected from them;… All the atlantic states of America and the old world have with wonder, heard stories of extensive works of art in this territory—of ancient fortifications and stupendous mounds of earth, the vestiges of [an] immense population and [an] infinitely greater share of science than is possessed by the present “red people.” Who then were the authors, is the question that is proposed—and when, and where did they migrate.3

Other than to assert that they were not the work of “the present ‘red people,’” Sargent did not attempt to answer the questions he raised regarding the identity of the ancient people who built the mounds. He was equally reticent about the prospect that the remote ancestors of at least some of the then existing tribes might have built them. Yet in both his 1794 Centinel letter and his drawing of the artifacts recovered from one of the mounds at Cincinnati in August that same year, which appeared in the fourth volume of Transactions of the American

SUMMER 2017 5 ANCIENT METROPOLIS

Philosophical Society, Sargent matter-of-factly described them as being removed from “the old Indian grave” and “an Old Indian Grave.” Given the state of knowledge regarding the mounds at the time, it would be asking too much of Sargent to have sorted it all out. But the architects of the mounds, whoever they were, were indigenous peoples. He saw no need to attribute the mounds to an exotic origin beyond the confines of the American continent.4

Sketch of the artifacts found in the “old Indian mound” by Winthrop Sargent (c. 1794). OHIO HISTORY CONNECTION

6 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY TERRY A. BARNHART

In the face of such uncertainty, it was all the more imperative, Sargent argued, that all materials left behind by the ancient inhabitants of the western country should be carefully collected and deposited in museums. It was preferable that they be placed in public institutions rather than private museums, whose existences were apt to be more ephemeral and their holdings more likely to be dispersed. Only then could those objects be compared to those of the ancient Mexicans (there was a tacit and widely entertained assumption that they might be related) and to the ancient remains of other peoples. Insights drawn from those analogies might elucidate the obscure subject of American antiquities by suggesting comparable uses of similar articles among peoples widely separated by time and space without necessarily suggesting a common origin. Sargent offered his own services in collecting such materials and in making drawings and descrip- tions of them before sending the originals, together with the names of those who contributed them, to either the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Historical Society of Massachusetts, Harvard College (he was a Harvard graduate), or to the American Philosophical Society according to the preferences of the donors. He bolstered that appeal by subjoining a November 1, 1791, letter from Jeremy Belknap, the principal founder and corresponding secretary of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Among the thirteen subjects of interest Belknap enumerated was “Monuments, and relicks of the ancient Indians,” together with the “numbers and present state of any remaining Indians.”5 Sargent acted in the matter to the extent that his official duties allowed. Several articles recovered from “the old Indian grave” opened at Cincinnati on August 30, 1794, which Sargent described as “matters curious & novel,” came into his possession by way of “Captain Jeffers[,] Mr. Goudy, Mr. Mitchell[,] Mr. Watt, & Mr. Garrison”—who presumably had opened the mound either on their own volition or at Sargent’s request. He gave an account of the articles recovered from the mound at the northwest corner of Third and Main Streets in Cincinnati that appeared in the July 1795 Massachusetts Magazine. Sargent sent a second account of the excavation and artifacts to the American Philosophical Society in a September 8, 1794, letter to Benjamin Smith Barton. This letter included the same drawings of ornaments and implements that appeared in the Massachusetts Magazine. The account he sent to Barton appeared in theTransactions of the American Philosophical Society in 1799. The exact circumstances in which the excavators found the objects bore directly on the question of their relative age. They found the articles Sargent described together with the remains of a human body lying in a nearly horizontal position about five feet below the surface of the mound, with the head turned westward. About fifteen feet southwest of the grave stood “an extensive artificial mound of earth, raised probably for the purposes of a burial-ground…. One of the main streets of the town passes through the Western part of this grave,

SUMMER 2017 7 ANCIENT METROPOLIS

and in the frequent repairs of the acclivity [upward slope], human bones have often been found.” Sargent hastened to add that the stumps of oak trees mea- suring seven feet in diameter stood atop the mound, indicating a remote antiquity. He deposited the objects recovered from the mound in the cabinet of the American Philosophical Society in accordance with his proposal in the Centinel of the North-West Territory.6 The material composition of the artifacts was another important consideration. George Turner of Philadelphia, one of the more active members of the American Philosophical Society and a former judge of the Northwest Territory, examined the articles Sargent had deposited in the society’s cabinet and submitted his analysis on November 25, 1799. Turner did so to correct several mis- conceptions concerning the identification and mineral composition of the items represented in Sargent’s published account. He thought it worthy of remark that the polished circular object made from cannel (bituminous) coal found in the Cincinnati mound resembled a circular object also made from cannel coal fig- ured in the first volume ofArchaeologia Scotica; or, Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (1792). He drew attention to those similarities not to suggest a connection between the Mound Builders and the ancient Scots but rather to explain why such resemblances in the ornaments and implements among ancient peoples should be no matter of surprise. Parallel conditions resulted in analogous inventions among peoples widely separated by time and place when in similar stages of social development. “Perhaps, both were designed for similar purposes by their ancient rude owners, though separated by an ocean a thousand leagues wide! Kindred acts will spring from kindred manners.”7 The novelty of American antiquities was irresistible in a new republic painfully self-conscious of its lack of historical associations akin to those of the Old World. The idea of an ancient American civilization held strong romantic and nationalistic appeal to cultural nationalists like Turner and Sargent. The ancient remains at Cincinnati, Marietta, and elsewhere in the Ohio Valley were subsumed or appropri- ated as part of an emerging national landscape and identity. Turner and Sargent incor- porated the mounds into their own visions of American exceptionality and unique- ness. Archaeological remains bespoke an unknown past that could be invested with heroic attributes and nationalistic purpose. Here, one could readily imagine, had once existed a people whose antiquity and achievements might have rivaled those of Greece and Rome. The appropriation of antiquity became part of the iconography of the early republic as represented in published survey maps of the mounds and earthworks and in the nationalist constructions of the early archaeological writers.8 Turner thought it unnecessary to derive the civilization represented by American antiquities from anywhere else but where it was found. It was original to the New World. Knowing that Winthrop Sargent shared his interest in the subject, Turner wrote him a letter in June 1787.

8 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY TERRY A. BARNHART

I am not one of those who implicitly believe that America was indebted to the Old World for its people. In the Course of innumerable ages, might not America have seen—and perhaps in Succession—the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Empire? Might she not have fostered the Arts and Sciences, while the now enlightened Parts of the Earth were covered with Barbarians? And may not the last period of her perfect Civilization be too remote in Antiquity for the most durable of her Monuments to have withstood the leveling Hand of Time?

Perhaps the earthworks of the western country represented “the last efforts of [an] expiring Civilization.” If such ruminations were not based in fact, they certainly inspired nationalistic imaginations.9 A good deal of what is known about the prehistoric remains at Cincinnati is due to Daniel Drake, a Cincinnati physician, naturalist, cultural leader, and community booster par excellence. Drake drew attention to the importance of making careful records of Ohio’s ancient works in Natural and Statistical View; or, Picture of Cincinnati and the Miami Country (1815) while it was still possible to do so in light of their rapid disappearance. He described the form and position of the mounds and earthen embankments located within the original town grid. Drake based his engraved Plan of Cincinnati, the frontispiece to the work, on a scale of eight hundred feet to an inch. His legend indicates the relative situations of nine of the ancient works once found there. Gen. James Taylor V of Newport, Kentucky, prepared the map at Drake’s request, based on the recorded surveys of the original towns plats. Some of the structures Drake described no longer existed, and the original forms of others were so degraded or disturbed as to be barely discernible. Community builders like Drake found themselves in a precarious and ironic situation. They derided public apathy regarding the destruction of the mounds even as their own efforts at promoting the development of their communities ensured that more prehistoric sites were threatened with obliteration.10 Drake lamented the general lack of concern and the disregard that westerners showed toward the mounds, their contents, and ultimate fates. He directed his severest criticism to those who lived in their midst and had the best opportunities to make thorough studies of them. Few seemed troubled at the disappearance of the mounds and the loss of the materials periodically recovered from them. Speaking of the fragments of pottery taken from the mounds and subsequently lost, he leveled his hardest indictment: “A comparison of these, as to form, composition and ornament, with the vases made in later times or by distant nations, might lead to interesting results; but the bigotry of Spain in the sixteenth century seems not to have been more destructive to the historical paintings of Mexico, than the indifference, negligence or idle curiosity of many of our citizens are to these interesting relics.” It was an apt historical analogy, and his criticism

SUMMER 2017 9 ANCIENT METROPOLIS

regarding disinterest in American antiquities was not an anomaly. Samuel R. Brown likewise bemoaned in the Western Gazetteer (1817) that most of the oval- shaped mound that once stood at the intersection of Third and Main Streets had already been destroyed: “Its venerable antiquity has not been respected; only a small part of it remains.” Clearly, not everyone was unconcerned about the fate of the mounds, but most found it a transitory consideration at best.11

Plan of Cincinnati by Daniel Drake. Natural and Statistical View; or Picture of Cincinnati and the Miami Country, (Looker and Wallace, 1815). UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI ARCHIVES AND RARE BOOKS LIBRARY

10 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY TERRY A. BARNHART

With a group of likeminded citizens, Drake moved beyond rhetoric and took action. He joined Elijah Slack, president of Cincinnati College; James Findlay, an attorney and editor of the Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette; and two other community leaders, William Steele and Jesse Embree, in establishing the Western Museum Society of Cincinnati. Steele proposed the creation of the society and apparently remained the society’s largest contributor. In the summer of 1818, he invited Drake to join him, and there is no question that Drake was the vision- ary and animating spirit from that point forward. The society sought to collect, preserve, and exhibit the “natural and artificial curiosities, particularly those of the western country.” Among the artificial curiosities to be collected and scientifically arranged for public inspection were “the relics of the unknown people who constructed the ancient works of the western country” along with the various ornaments and implements manufactured by “the present savage tribes.” The managers of the society were determined to exert every effort to form an exem- plary archaeological collection, since nothing associated with the western country generated more excitement or curiosity than “the relics and vestiges of the extinct and comparatively civilized population with which it abounds.” It was extremely unfortunate that the contents of so many mounds had already been removed and sent to museums in the East. As Drake and his fellow managers added with emphasis, “to study them [the artifacts] successfully, it is necessary that they should be compared, and for this purpose they must be brought together.” It was desired that local antiquities would thereafter be sent to the museum instead of being shipped out of state.12 The managers of the Western Museum differentiated between “antiquities” and “the weapons, utensils, trinkets, and other manufactures of our neigh- bouring Indians” as distinct classes of objects. It was a common though prob- lematic dichotomy in early museum collections and private cabinets aimed at determining what were presumably more ancient as opposed to more recent aboriginal “relics.” Chronologies for prehistoric and historic materials were nonexistent beyond the familiar “ancient” and “modern” designations. The problem with that division and conceptualization is that it emphasized differences to the near exclusion of continuities. Drake clearly distinguished between “ancient works” and the articles found at the more recent or modern Indian villages occupied in historic times. It should be noted, however, that, in contrast to some of his contemporaries, he never made hard distinctions between the societies of the ancient Mound Builders and later Indian groups. He recognized that some stone and earthen mounds were of a “modern date” and differed from the more ancient mounds in “their diminutive size; and from being disconnected [not found in association] with any extensive fortifications, or remains.” He observed three of those “Indian graves” examined in Kentucky. That the more recently constructed mounds differed in character

SUMMER 2017 11 ANCIENT METROPOLIS

from the more ancient ones did not, however, mean they were built by a different people or race. Drake and several other early writers understood that connection, though many failed to see it.13 Drake believed that the Indians known to history were the descendants of the earlier mound-building peoples. The societies that built the mounds were extinct but not the people themselves. Drake, a former student of Benjamin Smith Barton in the medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, accepted the opinion Barton stated in a May 1796 letter to Joseph Priestly and published in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. Regarding the objects recently found in the mound at Cincinnati, Barton affirmed that the nation or nations who constructed the mounds were not extinct or lost in the true sense of the word but were, rather, greatly changed by the influence of war and disease. As Drake observed in 1806, while still a medical student at the University of Pennsylvania, “Dr. Barton supposes that the remains of antiquity discovered throughout the continent of North America[,] and more particularly in the Western Parts, are the work of a Nation or Nations of people which are not now completely extinct but which have degenerated into the present aboriginal Indian tribes from the influence of war, pestilence, etc.”14

Artist rendering of the Early Woodland/Adena culture group (c. 800 BCE – 100 CE) gathering at a ceremonial earthwork in the Hocking River Valley in southeastern Ohio. OHIO HISTORY CONNECTION

12 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY TERRY A. BARNHART

Drake elaborated that view in Picture of Cincinnati and the Miami Country; he thought Barton’s theory had “a high degree of plausibility.” He further noted that Dr. Hugh Williamson, author of Observations on the Climate in Different Parts of America (1811), and Henry Marie Brackenridge, author of Views of Louisiana (1811), shared his opinion. Drake was quite clear in the matter.

In the course of some enquiries into the ancient works of the Miami country, I have found nothing adverse to the supposition of the Professor [Barton]; but several facts have appeared in its support. Of these, the only one which I shall mention is the existence, in the larger mounds, of fragments of earthen ware, which have in their composition a perfect identity with that fabricated since the discovery of America, even up to the present time, by many of the tribes low on the Mississippi. A single fact cannot establish a theory; but upon viewing this discovery in conjunction with what has been written by the inge- nious authors just cited, it must, I think, be acknowledged, that this hypoth- esis is rendered more plausible than any other.

Barton and Drake recognized dramatic changes among indigenous societies over a long but indefinite time period. They also perceived, however dimly, at least some continuity in prehistoric and historic ceramic traditions among indigenous peoples widely separated by time and place, stylistic variations within distinct eras notwithstanding. Based on the slenderest of evidence, Barton and Drake also hinted at the idea of cataclysmic population collapse and corresponding cultural changes among native peoples.15 After examining Drake’s archaeological collection during a visit to Cincinnati in March 1810, the American ornithologist Alexander Wilson shared his conclusion. Drake, who had recently opened what he described as a large Indian mound in the vicinity, showed Wilson the materials he found in that unidentified site and similar articles found in other mounds. A large fragment of earthenware recovered from the center of the mound was similar to earthenware that Wilson found at Grave Creek, in present-day Moundsville, West Virginia, “which is a pretty positive proof that these works have been erected by a people, if not the same, differing little from the present race of Indians, whose fragments of earthenware dug up about their late towns correspond exactly with these.” That correspondence was by no means exact and that opinion not the predominate one. But to Barton, Williamson, Drake, and Wilson it seemed the most credible explanation.16 Drake’s scientific interests also led him to draft the constitution for the Western Museum Society in June 1818. He did so, as his biographer Edward Deering Mansfield noted, “in such a manner as to the make the institution a complete school for natural history.” Drake hoped to see deposited in the museum “the choicest natural and artificial curiosities of the Western country.” The managers of the Western Museum

SUMMER 2017 13 ANCIENT METROPOLIS

Society hired curators and artists who spent the next two years acquiring collections and arranging and preparing them for public display. The principal curator was the English-born Robert Best, Elijah Slack’s assistant in chemistry at Cincinnati College and later a professor at Transylvania University. Joseph Dorfeuille succeeded Best as curator in 1823. The amiable and charming Dorfeuille was a naturalist, primarily an entomologist, from Louisiana. The naturalist John James Audubon worked at the museum as an artist, taxidermist, and curator for a brief period in 1819–20, during which time he prepared the collections of birds and fish for exhibition.17 Drake made the case for the importance of forming archaeological collections and museums at the opening of the Western Museum on June 10, 1820, in the Cincinnati College building. He made his inaugural address in the chapel of Cincinnati College on the condition and prospects of the society. It was proper on that occasion, said Drake, to review the design and work of the Western Museum Society and to ask what likely benefits the cultivation of the arts and sciences would have on “the happiness and dignity” of the community. The plan of the museum included “nearly the whole of those parts of the great circle of knowledge, which requires material objects, either natural or artificial, for their illustration.” Collections in zoology, mineralogy, antiquities, and the fine and useful arts were carefully assembled and intended to “offer something to interest the naturalist, the antiquary, and the mechanician.” As the best means of showing their natural order and beauty, the managers and artists organized the collections into groups according to their “natural affinities.” Among the museum’s most popular display was its collection of “the utensils, weapons and trinkets of our Indian tribes.”18

Cincinnati College, where Daniel Drake delivered the inaugural address at the opening of the Western Museum (c. 1819). OHIO HISTORY CONNECTION

14 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY TERRY A. BARNHART

Some of the artifacts relating to existing Indian groups were obtained directly from the tribes, others found in the vicinity of abandoned villages, and still others excavated from stone or earthen mounds. Drake hoped to see that part of the cabinet enlarged: “I trust that we are not disposed to forget that the curiosities which it contains, are the memorials of a people, who were lately the high-minded proprietors and sovereigns of the country which we now inhabit.” He commended “the curiosity that would seek to preserve from oblivion some memento of a people that seem to be doomed to inevitable extinction.” He further noted, “Our country exhibits older and nobler monuments than the recent vestiges of our Indian tribes. The number, extent and regularity of our mounds, and the implements of stone and copper which they contain, afford incontest- able proofs that a people more numerous, enlightened and social, than the wandering hordes found on the discovery of this continent, had previously been its inhabitants.” That statement clearly reflects period attitudes toward historic Indian peoples and their presumed characteristics and capabilities as opposed to prehistoric groups whose societies were presumably more polished or sophisticated (or at least different) as both Barton and Drake assumed. These were temporal distinctions being made and what we today recognize as cultural differences, but were not ethnic or racial ones. They illustrate the difficulties inherent in generic terms like “Mound Builders” and the equally all-purpose “Indians.” Yet Drake clearly understood that questions connected with the origin, era, and fate of the Mound Builders framed scientific problems that could only be solved by study- ing the things they left behind. Those remains had to be gathered, preserved, and compared to each other and to the ornaments and implements belonging to “the existing tribes.” Quite apart from similarities in the manufacture of earthenware, marine shells from a Cincinnati mound offered equally suggestive evidence regarding the possible “migrations, if not the origin, of the same people.” The museum contained three large seashells removed from a burial site in an elliptical mound near the center of Cincinnati. The lip and internal parts of the shells had been removed so they could serve as vessels. The most interesting question that could be asked of them, said Drake, was “from whence were they brought?” The two largest shells were of the same species and belonged to the genus Buccinum, which were found not along the Atlantic shore but in the West Indies. It seemed a likely supposition that the shells found their way into an Ohio mound from the Florida coast or possibly the shores of Cuba. The third and smallest shell belonged to the genus Murex, characterized by a reversed spire (turned from right to left). It was the opinion of John D. Clifford of Lexington, Kentucky, that shells of this confor- mation were the same as those Hindus used in conducting certain religious rites. And from that and other “facts,” Clifford injudiciously inferred that the former

SUMMER 2017 15 ANCIENT METROPOLIS

inhabitants of the western country were of Hindu origin. Drake considered that an unwarranted conclusion: “There is a reversed murex, however, in the northern European seas; and until it is ascertained that they, or some of our own waters have not supplied this, as well as the buccina which were found with it, such a bold speculation will not be received without hesitation.”19 The Western Museum’s shining prospects, however, soon dimmed. The museum failed to achieve its overly ambitious goals because the managers naively assumed that public audiences shared their own scientific interests and sense of civic mind- edness. The scientific significance of its collections and the noble aims that created them did not translate into sustainable resources. After the proprietors and managers made their initial investments of time and money in founding the museum, neither public patronage nor private munificence was able to offset the cost of maintaining and augmenting so large a collection. Consequently, in March 1823 the museum managers tried to sell the collection in order to recoup outstanding debts but found no takers. The managers severed their connection with the museum altogether by giving the collections to the curator Joseph Dorfeuille that same year. Dorfeuille remained the sole proprietor and manager of the Western Museum from 1823 until 1839. At least at first, he continued to promote the scientific and educational aims established by the Western Museum Society. Benjamin Drake, the historian, editor, literary raconteur, and younger brother of Daniel Drake, and Edward Deering Mansfield, a Cincinnati journalist, lauded Dorfeuille’s efforts at keeping the museum a viable concern. “The exertions of Mr. Dorfeuille, to render it worthy of the Society by which it was founded; and of the encouraging patronage which it has received, have been zealous, directed by good taste, and successful.”20 Notwithstanding that commendation, the legacy of the Western Museum is a mixed one. What began in 1820 as an educational institution for promoting science in the West became after 1829 a house of wonders run by Dorfeuille—a true showman. The museum’s original collections remained on the first floor, but many of them were becoming infested with insects and turning to dust. Yet Dorfeuille never lost interest in natural history and American antiquities, even though he took the museum in a direction that perhaps he did not initially envision; after all, it had either to pay for itself or close its doors. Dorfeuille’s obituary in the Morning Courier and New York Enquirer noted that at the time of his death from consumption in July 1840 he had in his possession a manuscript on the “Antiquities of America.” According to his wife, Janette Dorfeuille, he had for some time projected a work on the subject and devoted the whole of the winter and spring of 1839–40 preparing it for publication. The manuscript, or at least a catalog of the archaeological ornaments and implements in Dorfeuille’s collection, was still in Jeanette Dorfeuille’s possession in 1847, when Ephraim George Squier and Edwin Hamilton Davis unsuccessfully attempted to have it copied. Dorfeuille’s manuscript on the “Antiquities of America” does not appear to have survived.21

16 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY TERRY A. BARNHART

One of the most significant controversies of nineteenth-century American archaeology concerned whether alphabetic or hieroglyphic writing existed among the Mound Builders. Not surprisingly, the discovery of the Cincinnati Tablet—a sandstone slab bearing strange markings—generated considerable interest. Erasmus Gest (1820–1908) and a crew of workmen unearthed the Cincinnati Tablet during the removal of the mound located at the northwest corner of Fifth and Mound Streets in December 1841. They found the tablet interred with a human skeleton and two bone awls about seven inches long. The skeleton, in a decayed condition, was found near the center of the mound and below the natural surface of the ground (i.e., an original as opposed to an intrusive burial of later date). Several well-preserved skeletons were also buried in the same mound but were found so close to the surface as to suggest that they were deposited after the mound’s original construction. Details concerning the circumstances in which the excavators found the tablet, awls, and human remains are important in determining the authenticity of the Cincinnati Tablet.

Plaster cast reproduction of the Cincinnati Tablet (c. 800 CE–100 CE). OHIO HISTORY CONNECTION

SUMMER 2017 17 ANCIENT METROPOLIS

Adena bone awl found in excavated mound in Chillicothe, Ohio (c. 800 BCE – 100 CE), similar to bone awl found with the Cincinnati Tablet. OHIO HISTORY CONNECTION

Gest was an assistant city surveyor in Cincinnati between 1841 and 1844. He had firsthand knowledge of the removal of the mound and the recovery of its contents and knew the workman who did the digging. Members of the Western Academy of Natural Sciences of Cincinnati—the first such association west of the Alleghenies—which Daniel Drake and twenty-one other “friends of science” established in April 1835, were called upon to examine the tablet at a December 7, 1841, meeting. The officers of the academy appointed Vice President John Parsons Foote to chair a committee to report on the authenticity of the tablet at the academy’s next meeting held a week later. According to Foote, “the relic pos- sesses internal evidence of its genuineness, and there is no doubt that it was really disinterred from the mound, by whomsoever deposited.”22 An engraving of the tablet appeared in the Cincinnati Gazette on December 24, 1842, along with an article by Gest explaining the circumstances attending the tablet’s recovery. In his words, workmen found the tablet in an original interment at the base and near the center of the mound: “I think there can be but little doubt of its being a Hieroglyph, and probably is the history of a great chief, who once swayed the destinies of a powerful nation,—or, of the nation itself,—and its, to us, rude carvings, may yet be the means of identifying them with the People who founded the cities so recently discovered in South America, as its characters have a slight resemblance to some of those engraven on the Tombs and Pyramids of those cities, as seen by Messrs. Stephens and Catherwood.” Gest hoped “the dark mystery” shrouding the subject of American antiquities would soon give way, as interest in identifying the people who built the mounds increased with each new discovery. Future inquiries into the tribes rumored to be living in the remote and interior parts of the American continent—peoples said to still possess their “primitive” languages, manners, and customs—might yet determine which of those groups was “the remnant of the long lost, and supposed to have become extinct nation, and possess that information so long coveted by the Antiquarian.”23 TheAmerican Pioneer, a monthly periodical edited and published in Cincinnati by John S. Williams, published facsimiles of the Cincinnati Tablet in May 1843. Williams somewhat remorsefully reported the obliteration of the mound in which the tablet was found: “We stop to say that the removal of this mound is regretted by

18 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY TERRY A. BARNHART many of the best citizens, as its location was such as to render it a convenient and beautiful monument [of antiquity]. A mound which once stood at the junction of Main and Third streets, was necessarily removed to bring the street to a convenient slope. The removal of this last mound will complete the destruction of all the ancient works so conspicuous on the upper city level, in its first settlement.” Whereas Gest thought the design of the tablet to be hieroglyphic, Williams thought it more likely that the pattern was ornamental. He wrote, “Could we suppose those who made it, to be possessed of the art of stamping or printing, we might imagine this stone to be an engraving for the purpose. Its face is almost as even as the engraving from which we print.” He thought the ancient artisans who made the tablet used the depressions on the back of the stone much like a whetstone to grind and sharpen implements. Indeed, the two bone awls found with the tablet had possibly been shaped and sharpened in precisely that fashion. Williams surmised no further on the origin and purpose of those articles and simply added, “We would be extremely pleased if any antiquarian can throw any light on these ancient curiosities.”24 Ephraim George Squier accepted the stone’s authenticity in the Transactions of the American Ethnological Society (1848) and in “Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley,” coauthored with Edwin Hamilton Davis and published that same year in Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. Based on the detailed circumstances attending its recovery as Gest recounted in the Cincinnati Daily Gazette, Squier and Davis accepted the tablet’s authenticity. They did not accept Gest’s speculation that it was a hieroglyphic stone. The authors published front and reverse views of the tablet based on the drawing made by the Cincinnati engraver Horace C. Grosvenor. They believed the figures “more resembled the stalk and flowers of a plant than anything else in nature.” The fifteen diagonal marks or lines at each end of the tablet (seven on one end and eight on the other) further suggested that it could possibly be a tool for marking time. “The sum of the products of the longer and shorter lines (24X7+25X8) is 368, three more than the number of days in the year; from which circumstance the suggestion has been advanced [by whom, they did not say] that the tablet had an astronomical origin, and constituted some sort of calendar.” Yet Squier and Davis thought the suggestion Williams first made in theAmerican Pioneer—that it was a stamp—seemed a more probable explanation. They hypothesized that it was likely used for impress- ing its ornamental design onto cloths or animal skins. Stamps of burned clay recovered from mounds in the lower Mississippi Valley and found in Mexico, they noted, were covered with figures in low relief resembling “the face of the stereotype plate.” Archaeologists still accept the plausibility of that interpretation, and vari- ants thereof, and have further suggested that the tablet and the two tapered bone awls found with it, apparently made from the tibia of an Elk, might have been employed as a pattern for tattooing the human body—the awls being used in tracing the pattern on the flesh with a pigment like red ochre or other substances.25

SUMMER 2017 19 ANCIENT METROPOLIS

Squier and Davis’s opinions carried great weight throughout the mid- and late nineteenth century, but not everyone was satisfied with the stone’s authenticity. Charles Whittlesey was its foremost critic. He unflinchingly declared in Historical and Archaeological Tracts—in the issue published in February 1872 by Cleveland’s Western Reserve and Northern Ohio Historical Society—that the Cincinnati Tablet was one of three remarkable forgeries. “All illusions and all speculations on this relic,” he confidently pro- claimed, “are now dissipated.” Whittlesey took that position based solely on a letter written in December 1871 by the naturalist Jared Potter Kirtland. Whittlesey found the letter pasted inside a copy of Daniel Wilson’s Pre-Historic Man (1865) in the library of the Western Reserve and Northern Ohio Historical Society. Whittlesey, who served with Kirtland on the first Ohio Geological Survey in 1837–38, held the latter’s scientific opinion in high regard. He printed Kirtland’s letter in full with no questions. Whether the letter was accurate or based on a faulty and confused memory was the issue at hand. According Charles Whittlesey (1808-1886). OHIO HISTORY CONNECTION to Kirtland, one day during the spring of 1841 he was in the chemical laboratory of his colleague Dr. John Locke at the Medical College of Ohio in Cincinnati. In came a young man with a curiously engraved stone said to have been removed from a mound, which he was prepared to sell. Locke placed the stone under a magnifier and reportedly said: “I would advise you, before your try to palm this off as a piece of antiquity, to carefully brush from the excavations in the stone the fine grains of sand formed by the cutting instrument.” Kirtland then examined the tablet himself “and plainly detected the imposition. The fellow hastily seized the stone and made his exit without reply.” Kirtland further recalled that he later learned the stone was cut and engraved in a local marble shop and buried in the mound the night before its excavation. That rumor may well have made the rounds, but rumor, innuendo, and uncorroborated assertions are not strong evidence.26 Skepticism regarding the authenticity of the Cincinnati Tablet prompted the Cincinnati publisher, bookseller, and bibliophile Robert Clarke (1829–1899) to publish The Pre-Historic Remains Which Were Found on the Site of the City Cincinnati, Ohio with a Vindication of the “Cincinnati Tablet”—a pamphlet defending the tablet against the insinuations of Kirtland and Whittlesey. Clarke marshaled a convincing amount of corroborative evidence from those who had either witnessed the discovery of the Cincinnati Tablet or had been involved in

20 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY TERRY A. BARNHART its examination thirty-five years earlier. Erasmus Gest, members of the Western Academy of Natural Sciences of Cincinnati, and acquaintances of John Locke were called as witnesses. Those who knew Locke personally declared he never doubted the stone’s authenticity. Indeed, Locke went so far as to make a mold of the tablet and distributed plaster-cast copies. Kirtland’s statement that he and Locke examined the tablet in Locke’s laboratory in April 1841, moreover, was impossible to verify, since Gest’s workmen did not find it until December. If Kirtland’s recollection was true, he was recalling another stone and not the Cincinnati Tablet. That Whittlesey should accept Kirtland’s letter at face value and publish it as the last word on the matter was, in Clark’s opinion, not con- sonant with how scientific investigations should be conducted and evidence assessed. Whittlesey, it seems, was predisposed to disbelief. Archaeologists today attribute the Cincinnati Tablet to the Adena culture, an indigenous society or societies sharing cultural traits that thrived in the Ohio Valley from circa 800 b.c. to 100 a.d.. Erasmus Gest and Robert Clarke would be pleased. The Cincinnati Tablet is today displayed at the Cincinnati Museum Center in Union Terminal as an authentic Adena tablet.27 The destruction of the mounds and earthworks at Cincinnati was part of a larger process of national expansion, the imperatives of the marketplace, and the value placed on “improvement” and “progress” above preserving remnants of the past—themes not wedded to particular places or eras but constant com- panions. The grading of city streets, the running of turnpikes and state roads, and the coming of the canals and railroads in the nineteenth century destroyed mounds and earthworks throughout the Ohio Valley and beyond, just as the construction of state and interstate highways did in the twentieth and twenty- first centuries. Concern over the destruction of a rapidly receding cultural landscape, however momentary and ineffective, was present at an early day. The preservation of historic and cultural sites remains as much a challenge in our own time as in theirs. We revisit the origins of American archaeology to remind ourselves of that reality and to note those who made original and enduring contributions to knowledge—a cumulative and often painful process of trial, error, and verification. No better example of those growing pains is provided than by those who earnestly inquired into the origin, era, and purpose of the prehistoric mounds at Cincinnati.

SUMMER 2017 21 ANCIENT METROPOLIS

1 For the historiography on American archaeology’s 6 The original drawings of the artifacts recovered during uncertain beginnings and early development, see Terry the excavation of the mound at Cincinnati on August A. Barnhart, American Antiquities: Revisiting the Origins 30, 1794, are part of the Winthrop Sargent Papers in the of American Archaeology (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Archives-Library Division of the Ohio History Connection Press, 2015); Gordon R. Willey and Jeremy A. Sabloff,A in Columbus; see MSS 11, folder 11, box 3, Archives- History of American Archaeology, 3d ed. (New York: W. H. Library Division, Ohio History Connection. That drawing, Freeman, 1993); Bruce G. Trigger, “The Coming of Age or at least manuscript copies of it, appears as an engraving of the History of Archaeology,” Journal of Archaeological in both the Massachusetts Magazine and the Transactions of Research 2 (March 1994): 113–36; Trigger, A History of the American Philosophical Society. See Winthrop Sargent, Archaeological Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University “American Antiquities,” Massachusetts Magazine 7 (July Press, 1989); Jonathan E. Reyman, ed., Rediscovering 1795): 195–98 (the plate of engraved objects recovered Our Past: Essays on the History of American Archaeology in the excavation faces page 195 and is not paginated); “A (Avebury: Ashgate, 1992); Andrew L. Christensen, Letter from Colonel Winthrop Sargent, to Dr. Benjamin Tracing Archaeology’s Past: The Historiography of Archaeology Smith Barton, Accompanying Drawings and Some Account (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989); of Certain Articles, Which Were Taken Out of an Ancient Thomas Gilbert Tax, “The Development of American Tumulus, or Grave, in the Western-Country, Cincinnati, Archaeology, 1800–1879” (PhD diss., University of N.W. Territory, September 8, 1794,” Transactions of the Chicago, 1973); Robert Silverberg, Mound Builders of American Philosophical Society 4 (1799): 177–78; Sargent, Ancient America: The Archaeology of a Myth (Greenwich, “Drawing of Some Utensil, or Ornaments,” 179–80. CT: New York Graphic Society, 1968). In a very real sense, however, the history of American archaeology began 7 George Turner, “Remarks on Certain Articles Found in much earlier, with Samuel Foster Haven, Archaeology of the an Indian Tumulus at Cincinnati, and Now Deposited United States; or, Sketches, Historical and Bibliographical, of in the Museum of the American Philosophical Society,” the Progress of Information and Opinion Respecting Vestiges Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 5 of Antiquity in the United States, vol. 8 of Smithsonian (1802): 76; William Charles Little, “An Enquiry into the Contributions to Knowledge (Washington, D.C.: Expedients Used by the Scots before the Discovery of Smithsonian Institution, 1856); and Justin Winsor, “The Metals,” Archaeologia Scotia; or, Transactions of the Society Progress of Opinion Respecting the Origin and Antiquity of Antiquaries of Scotland 1 (1792): 389–95. of Man in America,” in Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. 1, Aboriginal America, ed. Justin Winsor 8 Whitney A. Martinko elaborates on this theme in (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1889), 269–412. “’So Majestic a Monument of Antiquity’: Landscape, Knowledge, and Authority in the Early National West,” 2 William Henry Harrison, “A Discourse on the Aborigines Buildings and Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular of the Valley of the Ohio,” Transactions of the Historical Architecture Forum 16 (Spring 2009): 29–61. and Philosophical Society of Ohio 1, pt. 1 (1839): 226, 227–28. 9 G. Turner to Winthrop Sargent, Philadelphia, June 15, 1787, MSS 1, folder 2, box 1, Winthrop Sargent 3 W. S. to William Maxwell, “CINCINNATI, September Papers, Archives-Library Division, Ohio Historical 6, 1794, Territory of the United States North-West of the Society. Columbus, Ohio. Also available on microfilm Ohio, September 2, 1794,” Centinel of the North-Western 96, roll 1, ser. 2. Territory (Cincinnati), Sept. 6, 1794. “W.S.” identifies Natural and Statistical View, or Picture of himself as Winthrop Sargent at the end of the letter. 10 Daniel Drake, Cincinnati and the Miami Country (Cincinnati: Looker 4 Winthrop Sargent, “CINCINNATI, September 6, & Wallace, 1815), ix; Henry D. Shapiro, “Daniel Drake: 1794, Territory of the United States North-West of the The Scientist as Citizen,” inPhysician to the West: Selected Ohio, September 2, 1794,” Centinel of the North-Western Writings of Daniel Drake on Science and Society, ed. Henry Territory (Cincinnati), Sept. 6, 1794; “A Drawing of Some D. Shapiro and Zane Miller (Lexington: University Press Utensil, or Ornaments, Taken from an Old Indian Grave, of Kentucky, 1970), xi–xxii. at Cincinnati, County of Hamilton, and Territory of the Natural and Statistical View, United-States, North-West of the River Ohio, August 30, 11 Daniel Drake, 208; Samuel The Western Gazetteer; or, Emigrant’s Directory, 1794. By Colonel Winthrop Sargent. Communicated R. Brown, Containing a Geographical Description of the Western States by Benjamin Smith Barton, M.D.,” Transactions of the and Territories…. American Philosophical Society 4 (1799): 179–80. (Auburn, N.Y.: H. C. Southwick, 1817), 282–83. 5 Jeremy Belknap to Winthrop Sargent, Boston, Nov. 1, 1791, Centinel of the North-Western Territory (Cincinnati), 12 Elijah Slack et al., “An Address to the People of the Sept. 6, 1794. Western Country,” [Prospectus of the Western Museum

22 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY TERRY A. BARNHART

Society], Cincinnati, Sept. 15, 1818, American Journal 18 This and the following two paragraphs are based on of Science and Arts 1 (1818): 203–6; “An Address to Daniel Drake, An Anniversary Discourse, on the State the People of the Western Country,” Liberty Hall and and Prospects of the Western Museum Society: Delivered by Cincinnati Gazette, Sept. 15, 1818; “An Address to the Appointment, in the Chapel of the Cincinnati College, June People of the Western Country,” handbill, bearing the 10th, 1820, on the Opening of the Museum (Cincinnati: signature of Daniel Drake as secretary of the Western Printed for the Society, by Looker, Palmer & Reynolds, Museum Society, Cincinnati, 1818, V P393, Archives- 1820). Drake dedicated the address to William Steele, Library Division, the Ohio History Connection; who first proposed the establishment of “a permanent “Scientific Institution in Cincinnati,”American Monthly museum” in Cincinnati and who contributed more than Magazine and Critical Review 4 (November 1818): 67. any other person to its organization and support. Drake’s By June 1820, Peyton S. Symmes had also become a anniversary discourse is reprinted without the dedication manager of the Western Museum Society. and with different pagination inPhysician to the West: Selected Writings of Daniel Drake on Science and Society, 13 Drake, Natural and Statistical View, 200–201. ed. Henry D. Shapiro and Zane Miller (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1970), 131–50. 14 Benjamin Smith Barton to Rev. Joseph Priestly, Philadelphia, May 16, 1796, published as “Observations 19 Ibid., 21. Caleb Atwater also adopted Clifford’s Hindu and Conjectures Concerning Certain Articles Which theory based on the supposed implications of the Were Taken Out of an Ancient Tumulus, or Grave, at triune vase. See Charles Boewe, ed., John D. Clifford’s Cincinnati,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Indian Antiquities: Related Materials by C. S. Rafinesque Society 4 (1799): 188; Daniel Drake, “Medical Diary or (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2000). Common Place Book,” bound manuscript, Philadelphia, 1806, 123–24, MS B 123, U.S. National Library 20 Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette, March 18, 1823; of Medicine, National Health Institutes, Bethesda, Tucker, “Ohio Show Shop,” 81; B. Drake and E. D. Maryland. An excellent account of changes afoot in Mansfield,Cincinnati in 1826 (Cincinnati: Printed by late prehistoric and early historic societies in the Ohio Morgan, Lodge & Fisher, 1827), 44. Valley is David S. Brose, Wesley Cowan, and Robert C. Mainfort Jr., eds., Societies in Eclipse: Archaeology of the 21 “Died” (obituary), Morning Courier and New York Eastern Woodland Indians ad 1400 to 1700 (Washington Enquirer, July 24, 1840; “Antiquities of America,” D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001). Long Island Star, Aug. 1, 1840; Janette Dorfeuille to Samuel George Morton, Brooklyn, Sept. 19, 1840, 15 Drake, Natural and Statistical View, 218. Samuel George Morton Papers, Mss.B.M843, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia; the letter from 16 [Alexander Wilson], “Extract of a Letter from Lexington,” Janette Dorfeuille to Morton is reprinted in Elizabeth R. Port Folio 3d ser., 3 (June 1810): 507. Wilson’s unsigned Kellogg, “Joseph Dorfeuille and the Western Museum,” letter to the Port Folio is dated Lexington, April 4, 1810. Journal of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History 22 (April 1945): 17; E. G. Squier to John Russell, Memoirs of the Life and Services 17 Edward D. Mansfield, Chillicothe, Feb. 20, 1847, A. Randall to E. H. Davis, of Daniel Drake, M.D. (Cincinnati: Applegate & Co., Prairie du Cross, June 9, 1847, Ephraim George Squier 1855), 135. On the history of the Western Museum, Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. see M. H. Dunlop, “Curiosities Too Numerous to Mention: Early Regionalism and Cincinnati’s Western 22 The report of John Parsons Foote (1783–1865)—a Museum,” American Quarterly 36 (Autumn 1984): Cincinnati printer and former publisher of the short- 524–48; Lewis Leonard Tucker, “‘Ohio Show-Shop’: lived Cincinnati Literary Gazette—is taken from “Western The Western Museum of Cincinnati, 1820–1867,” in Academy of Natural Sciences of Cincinnati, Minutes, vol. A Cabinet of Curiosities: Five Episodes in the Evolution of 2, June 15–1840–June 11, 1849,” Cincinnati History American Museums, ed. Whitfield J. Bell (Charlottesville: Archives and Manuscripts, Cincinnati Museum Center. University of Virginia Press, 1967), 72–105; Walter B. See the minutes for the December 7 and December Hendrickson, “The Western Museum Society,”Bulletin 14 meetings of the academy for the discussion of the of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio 7 (April Cincinnati Tablet. The quote from the minutes of the 1949): 99–110; Hendrickson, “The Western Museum academy also appears in Robert Clarke, The Pre-Historic Society of Cincinnati,” Scientific Monthly 63 (July 1946): Remains Which Were Found on the Site of the City of 66–72; Elizabeth R. Kellogg, “Joseph Dorfeuille and Cincinnati, Ohio with a Vindication of the “Cincinnati the Western Museum,” Journal of the Cincinnati Society Tablet” (Cincinnati: Privately printed, 1876), 20. See of Natural History 22 (April 1945): 3–29; Ulana Lydia Walter B. Hendrickson, “The Western Academy of Baluk, “Proprietary Museums in Antebellum Cincinnati: Natural Sciences of Cincinnati,” Isis 37 (July 1947): ‘Something to Please You and Something to Learn’” 138–45, for an account of the membership and activities (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2000). of the academy, which was founded in 1835.

SUMMER 2017 23 ANCIENT METROPOLIS

23 Erasmus Gest to the editors, Cincinnati, Dec. 2, 1842, 26 Charles Whittlesey, “Archaeological Frauds— Cincinnati Gazette, Dec. 24, 1842, and accompanying Inscriptions Attributed to the Mound Builders—Three wood engraving of the Cincinnati Tablet. Remarkable Forgeries,” Western Reserve Archaeological and Historical Tracts 9 (February 1872): 1–4. 24 [John S. Williams], “Ancient American Relics,” American Whittlesey’s comments regarding the spuriousness of Pioneer 2 (May 1843): 195–96. The article is anonymous “the Cincinnati stone” appear on pages 2 and 3, and but is here attributed to the editor of the periodical, John Kirtland’s letter on page 3: J. P. Kirtland, “Comments of S. Williams. A facsimile of the Cincinnati Tablet appears as Dr. Jared P. Kirtland, Cleveland, Ohio, December 1871, figures 1 and 2 of the frontispiece, along with three stone on Figure 17, Page 221 [of] Wilson’s Pre-Historic Man ornaments or implements recovered from the same mound. [on] the ‘Cincinnati Tablet.’”

25 Ephraim George Squier, “Aboriginal Monuments of 27 Robert Clarke, The Pre-Historic Remains Which Were the Mississippi Valley,” Transactions of the American Found on the Site of the City of Cincinnati, Ohio with Ethnological Society 2 (1848): 197–99; also published a Vindication of the “Cincinnati Tablet” (Cincinnati: as a pamphlet in New York by Bartlett and Welford in Privately printed, 1876). November 1847; Ephraim George Squier and Edwin Hamilton Davis, “Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley: Comprising the Results of Extensive Original Surveys and Explorations” in Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1848), 1:274–76. Horace C. Grosvenor offers his services as a wood engraver in Charles C. Cist, comp., The Cincinnati Directory for the Year 1843 (Cincinnati: R. P. Brooks, Printer, 1843), 142; Williams’ Cincinnati Guide and General Business Directory for 1848–1849 (Cincinnati: C. S. Williams & Son, 1848), 92.

24 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Voting with Their Arms Civil War Military Enlistments and the Formation of West Virginia, 1861–1865

Scott A. MacKenzie

ew today associate West Virginia with slavery. Dating back to the state’s formation in 1863, historians have asserted that the loyal mountaineer population rejected Virginia’s secession because the western part of the state had virtually Fno connection to the “peculiar institution.” On his inauguration day, the new state’s first governor affirmed a thesis about West Virginia’s formation that persists to this day. Arthur I. Boreman opined in his inaugural address that eastern neglect led to the state’s formation. Representatives from eastern Virginia exercised disproportionate influence at the state capitol in Richmond and, he argued, used tax revenue to support improvements in their part of the state at the expense of the western counties. The region, he concluded, had more in common with neighboring Ohio and Pennsylvania than Virginia. Western resistance to secession was, therefore, preordained. Boreman mentioned slavery only twice, and downplayed its importance on both occasions. Secessionists claimed, he said, that adherence to the Union would reduce men “to a state of degradation worse than slavery itself.” He then asked loyal unionists, “Shall we object that slavery is destroyed as the result of the acts of those in rebellion, if the Union is thereby saved?” West Virginia’s independence and free status disproved both sentiments. His words have influenced views of the Mountain State’s history ever since.1 If what Boreman said was true, then West Virginia was the only part of the United States unaffected by the leading cause of the Civil War. His fellow citizens viewed the matter differently. He presided over a divided population; secessionists believed his administration to be the illegitimate product of collaboration with the abolitionist Lincoln administration. Many unionists felt the same way. One issue drove those who sided with the Confederacy: slavery. Contrary to Boreman’s claims, slavery influenced West Virginia’s history disproportionately to its numbers. With only 5 percent of its population enslaved, its white population lived comfortably with the presence of bondsmen and women. Being proud Virginians gave them no reason to oppose the institution and good ones to support it. In 1861, secession forced whites to choose between siding with Lincoln and following their state into the Confederacy. The examples of six West Virginia counties that had both Union and Confederate enlistees demonstrate the powerful influences of slavery and slaveholding on choosing sides. These factors disprove Boreman’s statements and suggest new questions about the Mountain State’s formation.

SUMMER 2017 25 VOTING WITH THEIR ARMS

Map of the Proposed State of New Virginia. New York Herald, May 18, 1861. WEST VIRGINIA STATE ARCHIVES

In West Virginia’s history, slavery always mattered. The first bondsmen and women, though in limited numbers, came with the earliest white settlers in the 1780s. Masters tended to rank among the region’s more prominent citizens. The first federal census, in 1790, recorded between 3 and 5 percent of the populations as enslaved of the only counties in the region at the time, Ohio, Monongalia, and Harrison. In 1850, the then thirty-five counties contained seven thousand enslaved persons (4 percent); the numbers had declined to six thousand (or 3 percent) a decade later. The geographic distribution, however, varied widely. Table 1, below, indicates the proportion of slaves in each of the six counties in my sample. Jefferson and Hampshire each had above the average numbers with one-quarter and one-tenth of their respective populations enslaved. Wayne and Cabell had roughly the average ratios with between 2 and 6 percent. Ohio and Monongalia each had less than 1 percent, a nearly imperceptible number. Moreover, each sampled county, save Ohio, had negligible numbers of foreign-born persons. Non-southerners, especially foreigners, possessed less familiarity with slavery. More outsiders could, native-born Virginians feared, fail to support the institution. The low numbers of each meant that they need not have worried.2

Table 1: Total, enslaved, and foreign-born populations in sampled counties, 1850 and 1860. County TOTAL Whites Total slaves (%) Foreign-born (%)

Cabell 6,299 5,902 389 (6) 140 (2)

Hampshire 14,036 12,379 1,433 (10) 696 (5)

1850 Jefferson 15,357 10,476 4,341 (28) 598 (4)

Monongalia 12,387 12,092 176 (1) 118 (>1)

Ohio 18,006 17,612 164 (>1) 4,015 (22)

Wayne 4,760 4,564 189 (4) 12 (>1)

26 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY SCOTT A. MACKENZIE

Cabell 8,020 7,691 305 (4) 157 (2)

Hampshire 13,913 12,478 1,213 (9) 451 (3)

1860 Jefferson 14,535 10,064 3,960 (27) 361 (2)

Monongalia 13,048 12,901 101 (>1) 160 (1)

Ohio 22,422 22,196 100 (>1) 5,510 (25)

Wayne 6,747 6,604 143 (2) 27 (>1)

Source: Data compiled from Historical Census Browser, University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center, accessed July 22, 2012, http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/collections/ stats/histcensus/index.html, site discontinued.

Eastern Virginians did worry about their western neighbors. Tidewater planters viewed anyone outside of their class as a threat to their political and economic control. Since colonial times, they had secured their rule by limiting suffrage to property holders, which put most western Virginians—those in the Shenandoah Valley and southwestern and northwestern parts of the Old Dominion—at a dis- advantage. An unfortunate episode during the 1829–30 constitutional debates heightened planters’ suspicions. After episodes of slave resistance and disloy- alty during the War of 1812, many delegates—east and west alike—expressed a desire to gradually end slavery. Because they would lose the least from the process and it would mend relations with the East, northwesterners supported this idea. The motion failed by a close vote, but it had the opposite effect on in-state relations. Eastern planters accused their opponents, and the northwest in particular, of being abolitionists. For the next twenty years, they prevented changes to the Commonwealth’s constitution to keep government in their hands. With great reluctance, planters granted universal male suffrage in the 1851 constitution but insisted upon special tax provisions for slave property. Despite this lingering privilege, northwesterners, slaveholders or not, reveled in their new equal status in their state, which enhanced rather than reduced their support for slavery.3 The proliferation of connections to the outside world had little if any impact on the region’s demographics or politics. West Virginia’s early historians claimed that eastern neglect prompted the formation of their state. The truth is different. Numerous roads, turnpikes, steamboats, and bridges linked the region to the Atlantic ports, the Ohio River, the northern states, and the rest of the state. Other parts of the mountain South did not have the same level of transportation infrastructure. The Buncombe Trail connected western North Carolina with Tennessee and the Atlantic coast, for example. Railroads brought further enhancements. Northwestern Virginia received its iron rails at the same time as East Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, and even parts of Ohio. In 1853, the Baltimore and Ohio connected Harpers Ferry in Jefferson, cutting past Hampshire and Monongalia, and ending at Wheeling in Ohio County. A branch line moved through the central part of the region to end at Parkersburg

SUMMER 2017 27 VOTING WITH THEIR ARMS

in Wood County on the Ohio River four years later. Some counties, however, lacked any improvements during the antebellum period. No turnpikes or railroads reached Wayne and Cabell counties before the war; steamboat services along the Ohio River made up the difference. Despite these connections, northwestern Virginia did not take on the characteristics of its free state neighbors. As table 1 shows, neither the free, enslaved, nor foreign-born populations of the sampled counties changed significantly in the 1850s. No influxes of immigrants flocked to the region to alter its demographics or economy.4

Wheeling, Virginia in 1850. The South in the Building of the Nation: A History of the Southern States, Volume I (The Southern Historical Publication Society, 1909). NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

If anything, the region’s proslavery attitudes stiffened in that pivotal decade. The annexation of western territories from Mexico after the 1846–48 war rekin- dled sectional disputes on the future of slavery. Free states sought to preserve these lands for white labor, while the slaveholding states insisted on their right to take property to the new territories. Northwestern Virginia stood firmly on the side of the latter. Whites rallied to protect themselves and their state from antislavery forces in the 1850s on two notable occasions. In 1856, the Massachusetts politician, businessman, and activist Eli Thayer established a free labor colony in Ceredo, Wayne County. He and hundreds of white supporters came at the wrong time. The locals knew of his actions in the fighting between pro- and antislavery forces in Kansas Territory. TheWheeling Daily Intelligencer, an inde- pendent-minded but radical newspaper, praised the colony for bringing “men who have the heart and hands to go to work and rid out the wilds and open up the hills of our highly favored Western Virginia.” Others violently disagreed.

28 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY SCOTT A. MACKENZIE

The DemocraticFairmont True Virginian—which proudly boasted, “We do not exchange with the Wheeling Intelligencer”—called the colony “a humbug,” and urged the residents to “keep a civil tongue in their heads, and not slander the land that keeps them from starving.” Lawyer Albert Gallatin Jenkins of Cabell organized a petition that similarly urged the outside world to remember “the sentiment of the people of this place was not anti-slavery.” The colonists abandoned the region shortly thereafter. Northwestern whites also used the musket and sword in addition to the printing press and petition. In the wake of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry in Jefferson County, militia units throughout the region were mobilized. The Kanawha Riflemen gathered immediately but did not arrive in time. Wheeling’s Virginia State Fencibles did. The DemocraticWheeling Daily Union praised their response as proof of the region being “uncontaminated by her Abolitionist neighbors.” Whether inside or outside of formal politics, white northwestern Virginians offered no place for opponents of slavery.5

Captain Albert’s party attacking participants in John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, November 5, 1859. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

The clearest signs of the region’s proslavery attitudes come from its presidential election returns. Parties split, fell, and rose during the turbulent slavery debates of the 1850s. As table 2 indicates, white northwestern Virginians preferred parties with unambiguous proslavery credentials. In 1852, the Whigs and Democrats, both of whom had such merits, split the sampled counties evenly. Four years later, the American, or Know-Nothing, Party had assumed the place of the fallen Whig Party. Democrats assailed their opponents with labels of “abolitionist” to win all six of the sampled counties, including virtually slaveless Ohio. Part of their victory stemmed from significant Know-Nothing gains in

SUMMER 2017 29 VOTING WITH THEIR ARMS

state politics in 1855, including the election of John S. Carlile to Congress. In 1860, with secession brewing, voters searched for compromise that would preserve both the Union and slavery. The Constitutional Union Party, led by John Bell of Tennessee, replaced the Know-Nothings, while rifts between Democrats produced two competing tickets, headed by John Breckinridge of Kentucky and Stephen Douglas of Illinois. A fourth party, the Republicans, fielded Illinoisan Abraham Lincoln, but many northwestern counties refused to allow the con- troversial antislavery party onto its ballots. Subsequently, Bell won Jefferson, Ohio, and Wayne. Douglas took Monongalia and Cabell. Breckinridge received Hampshire. The switch is significant. Northwestern Virginians placed their faith in moderate parties instead of the more radical Breckinridge Democrats and the Lincoln Republicans. The national result was quite different. Lincoln won every northern state except New Jersey. His election prompted secessionist movements across the slaveholding states. The seven Lower South states had departed by the time he took office in March 1861. The eight Border and Upper South states, Virginia included, resisted the wave but uneasily awaited what the new administration would do.6 When Virginia’s convention met in early 1861 to consider secession, the northwest played a pivotal role in preventing it. A coalition of conservatives, moderates, and outright opponents of secession from across the state, gathered to forestall the secessionists. Only a common belief in maintaining the Union as it was (i.e., with slavery) held them together.

Table 2. 1852, 1856 and 1860 presidential returns from sampled counties.

1852 1856 1860

County Dema Whig Dem American Repb NDc SDd CUPe Rep

Cabell 424 457 463 320 0 407 161 316 4

Hampshire 1115 743 1168 747 0 75 1054 878 1

Jefferson 898 958 946 845 0 440 458 959 0

Monongalia 1308 688 1447 609 0 757 601 622 77

Ohio 1186 1452 1632 1464 108 716 915 1202 771

Wayne 206 225 362 269 0 82 166 326 10

Source: Presidential returns are from Michael J. Dubin, United States Presidential Elections, 1788–1860: The Official Returns by State and County (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2002).

Notes: a. Democrats. b. Republicans. c. National Democrats. d. Southern Democrats. e. Constitutional Union Party.

30 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY SCOTT A. MACKENZIE

Each of the counties studied here sent unionist delegates to the convention. The region’s representatives made their allegiance to slavery clear. Waitman T. Willey of Monongalia declared on March 4 that secession meant the “commence- ment of the abolition of slavery, first in Virginia, then in the Border States, and ultimately throughout the Union.” Three days later, John S. Carlile of Harrison outlined his region’s allegiances to Virginia, the South, and slavery. “A more loyal people to the soil of their birth is nowhere to be found,” he said, “a people devoted to the institution of slavery, not because of their pecuniary interest in it, but because it is an institution of the State.” Their sentiments undermined attempts at secession in March and early April. Fellow unionists rewarded northwestern delegates’ allegiance to slavery by approving Willey’s motion to resolve the outstanding taxation issue in the constitution. The final obstacle to Virginia unity appeared ready to fall, but the measure was approved on April 11, 1861. South Carolina’s attack on Fort Sumter the next day shattered the unionist coalition in the convention and, with it, all hopes of keeping Virginia united and loyal.7

Waitman T. Willey (1811-1900). John S. Carlile (1817-1878). WEST VIRGINIA STATE ARCHIVES WEST VIRGINIA STATE ARCHIVES

The shock of secession started the West Virginia statehood movement. On April 17, the convention voted to send a secession ordinance to the voters. All but four of the twenty-six northwestern delegates opposed it. Each from the six sample counties voted in the negative. Carlile and other western unionists met in a Richmond hotel to discuss their course of action. They agreed to return to Wheeling, but on their way back they stopped in Washington to see Lincoln. No record exists of the meeting, but the unionists’ actions in subsequent days suggest that the president encouraged them to resist the secessionists as much as possible,

SUMMER 2017 31 VOTING WITH THEIR ARMS

but without his interference. He employed the same approach he adopted for Missouri, Kentucky, and Delaware. Necessity required intervention in Maryland, but the ensuing controversy bedeviled Lincoln for years. In the weeks before the referendum, unionists organized rallies to mobilize opposition to secession. Willey withdrew from the movement, but in Clarksburg on April 22, Carlile gathered hundreds who denounced Richmond for “inaugurating a war without consult- ing those in whose name they profess to act.” He also called for selected delegates to attend a convention in Wheeling in mid-May. Although its membership came mostly from the northern panhandle and neighboring counties, Carlile shocked the delegates with a plan to form a new state. On May 14, he moved that a committee “be instructed to report a constitution and form of government for said State, to be called the State of New Virginia.” Only days before, few had dared to contemplate such a situation, but the meeting quickly endorsed the idea. The delegates cheered three times for the new state, then three times more for Carlile.8

Delegates at the Second Wheeling Convention, June 11-25, 1861. Harper’s Weekly, July 6, 1861. WEST VIRGINIA STATE ARCHIVES

32 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY SCOTT A. MACKENZIE

Secessionists retaliated against this purported treason. Believing that disunion was legal, inevitable, and necessary, they mobilized their supporters against Carlile and the unionists. They had a harder time than their opponents, however. Joseph Johnson of Harrison County, a former governor, gathered a mere sixty men to a counter-rally in Clarksburg a few days after Carlile’s gathering attracted twelve hundred. A last-minute measure by the convention to resolve the taxation issue also fizzled. Men joined militia groups around this time, but their leaders complained to Governor Letcher about the lack of support. On April 23, William P. Cooper, a Clarksburg newspaper editor, wrote to Letcher, “I can raise such a company,” which would be “comprised of our mountaineers, who I believe, will be as good men for actual Governor John Letcher (1813-1884). LIBRARY OF CONGRESS service as the world can provide.” However, on April 29, James M. H. Beale of Point Pleasant in Mason County was more honest. He pleaded to Letcher, “Give us arms. Give us arms.” The Kanawha Valley Star, meanwhile, issued an unsubtle message. “Should the abolitionists of Ohio send an invading army into Western Virginia, not a soldier among them will ever return alive. The mountain boys would shoot them down like dogs,” it declared. Although struggling to compete with the unionists’ organization, the secessionist cause in the northwest fully expected that it would prevail in the end.9 The weight of allegiances finally told in the May 23 referendum. Statewide, the measure passed by a wide margin, but the northwest opposed the measure by two to one. Of the sample counties, all of which had hitherto voted unionist, Hampshire and Jefferson buckled to support secession. The remainder voted to oppose it, as table 3 indicates. Election data ends here, but political activity did not. Two state governments, unionist and secessionist, claimed control over the northwest. In October 1861, the unionist Reorganized Government of Virginia held a referendum on forming a new state. While the measure passed overwhelmingly, only counties with a military presence posted returns. It held two more referenda, in April 1862 and February 1863, to approve the new state’s constitution and adopt an emancipation measure as demanded by Congress. Carlile, and many other conservative unionists, bolted from the statehood movement for this sudden turn of events. Many cheered his departure. Upon statehood in June 1863, West Virginia held its own assembly in Wheeling and sent representatives to Washington. The secessionist government in Richmond and the Confederate Congress admitted senators and representatives from the region throughout the war. Each side tried to intimidate the other. When two Kanawha County men attended the Wheeling

SUMMER 2017 33 VOTING WITH THEIR ARMS

Convention in late May, Col. Christopher Tompkins of the 22d Virginia, a regiment recruited in the Kanawha Valley, declared to the local population: “Men of Virginia! Men of Kanawha! To Arms! You cannot serve two masters. You have not the right to repudiate allegiance to your own State. Be not seduced by his sophistry or intimidated by his treats. Rise and strike for your firesides and altars.”

Table 3: May 23, 1861, Virginia secession referendum results, by sampled county. County For Against Cabell 271 921 Wayne 258 758 Jefferson 813 365 Hampshire 1,188 788 Ohio 159 3,156 Monongalia 123 2,232

Source: Richard Orr Curry, A House Divided: A Study of Statehood Politics and the Copper- head Movement in West Virginia (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1964), 142–44.

He was too late. In July, a federal army occupied the Kanawha Valley. Secessionist regiments, including Tompkins’s, retreated eastward. They found themselves separated not only from their families, but unable to enforce the laws of their state in their home areas.10 For young men, only one option remained: enlistment. Choosing sides became a political act, but explaining why is not easy. Few West Virginia Civil War soldiers left letters or diaries that state their motivations for enlisting. The data collected upon their joining the Union and Confederate armies provides a quantitative method to cut through this shortcoming. Recruiters took down a soldier’s name, age, place of birth, and residence upon enlistment. Unit clerks updated this information with promo- tions, transfers, wounds, or deaths as needed. After

the war, the U.S. War Department collated this Kanawha Falls, West Virginia. The South in the information into service records for pensioning pur- Building of the Nation: A History of the Southern poses. The George Tyler Moore Center for the Study States, Volume I (The Southern Historical Publi- cation Society, 1909). of the Civil War at Shepherd University used these NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY records as part of a multimedia project. It estimated that as many as twenty thousand men fought on each side, with an additional ten thousand from other states serving in the state’s Union regiments. Their work, however, says little about the soldiers’ social backgrounds.11

34 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY SCOTT A. MACKENZIE

Comparing enlistment records to the federal census reveals numerous dis- cernable patterns of political behavior. The sampled counties have two important criteria. First, they had both Union and Confederate soldiers accredited to it. Others had only one or the other or had mainly guerrilla forces, for whom few sources exist to study. Second, they also had a major transportation net- work: a road, railroad, or river to another place allowed external influences to shape their politics, economics, and culture. West Virginia had extensive ties to Ohio and Pennsylvania. Yet, three observations stand out from this analysis. First, Confederates tended to be Virginia natives or had one or both parents also born in Virginia or had at least lived in the region. Second, Union soldiers tended not to come from Virginia at all. Northern- and foreign-born enlistees predominated in those units. Third, Confederates tended to have clear links to slavery and slaveholding out of proportion to their actual numbers. With Confederates having actual ties to the region, they had clearer motivations to fight for its control.12 Jefferson County, nestled atop the Shenandoah Valley, had the largest number of slaves in the sample. Over one quarter (3,950) of its population of 14,525 consisted of enslaved persons. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad ran straight through the county, allowing its agriculture and manufactured goods ready access to the Atlantic and the west. Yet, its population strongly supported the rebellion. Its Confederate enlistees show strong attachments to the institution and the social connections between slaveholders. Between April 18, 1861, the day after the Virginia convention voted to secede, and the end of the month, more than three hundred men joined the 2d Virginia Infantry. A sample of forty-one men indicates strong connections to slavery. Of those, none owned slaves, but a dozen came from households who did. The twenty-year-old John William Rider, for example, lived in his farmer father’s home with ten slaves. The other recruits had similar stories. The war put them as well as their families in the firing line. Many of the war’s major battles occurred in or near the county, including Antietam, which occurred over the river in Washington County, Maryland.13 In contrast, the same conditions prevented Union recruiting in the county. While hundreds of Jeffersonians joined Confederate service within weeks of Virginia’s secession, no federal soldiers came from the county. After the war, the State of West Virginia accredited a mere twenty-six enlistees from the entire war to Jefferson County. Yet none of them lived there. Moreover, only three of these men appear in the census. William Gill and George Snider of Company L, 1st West Virginia Cavalry, came from Loudon County and Frederick County, Virginia. William McAfferty of Company B, 1st West Virginia Infantry, came from Frederick County, Maryland. The origins of the others, mostly from Battery A, 1st West Virginia Light Artillery, are unknown but have German names, a rarity in Jefferson. The foreign born made up only 2 percent of its 1860

SUMMER 2017 35 VOTING WITH THEIR ARMS

population. They most likely came from Maryland or Pennsylvania. Exactly why postwar authorities would credit men to this county remains unclear; they may have wished to stake a claim to the area. Further up the Potomac, Hampshire County produced soldiers in similar ways as Jefferson. More mountainous than its neighbor, its population held 1,213 enslaved persons, or 10 percent of its total, but still elicited strong Confederate support. Its economy thrived with ready access to the Baltimore and Ohio which ran through neighboring Maryland. Enlistments there reflected neighborhood and kinship connections as much as slave ownership. Confederates signed up as soon as the war began, mostly into the Virginia Partisan Rangers. In 1862, most transferred to the 18th Virginia Cavalry, led by Col. George Imboden, the brother of Brig. Gen. John D. Imboden who raided through northwestern Virginia in April 1863. Yet, of the eighty-six Hampshire men who joined the Confederate army, all but six came from the eastern part of the county. In addition, three more lived in Romney and another in Springfield, the only two towns in that eastern half. Only one lived in the west. These differing sentiments, Stephen Smith has argued, led it to split off to form Mineral County in 1868. Only one owned a slave, while five more came from slaveholding families. All but five were born in Virginia. A remarkable twenty-four had families of their own, a much higher rate than in other counties. Aside from the lower rate of slaveholding, Hampshire’s Confederates had backgrounds similar to those in Jefferson.14 The county’s Union enlistees contrasted with their enemies in every way. The 4th West Virginia Infantry started recruiting there from the outset. Yet, like Jefferson, not one of its recruits came from the county. All but two came from neighboring Allegany County, Maryland. The others lived in adjacent Hardy County and in more distant Shenandoah County, Virginia. Its recruits bore little resemblance to their counterparts. Exactly half, or eighteen men, were born in Maryland, while a dozen had foreign birth, varying from Ireland and Scotland to the various German states. Only one, William Broadwater of Maryland, came from a slaveholding home. Most families had little if any property. While the Confederates could make strong claims to be fighting for their homes, Hampshire’s Union soldiers had virtually no ties to the area. Indeed, the outside residence and little wealth indicate that the army assigned recruits to counties to stake a political claim there. Despite having few slaves and strong connections to northern states, Monongalia County still experienced trouble recruiting for the Union. The county had both steamboat and railroad connections to Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Wheeling. Its population enthusiastically opposed secession and supported statehood. Waitman T. Willey, one of the most prominent statemakers, came from its largest city, Morgantown. In 1860, he owned 2 of the county’s 101 enslaved persons. Yet, enlistment patterns reveal less enthusiasm for the Union than

36 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY SCOTT A. MACKENZIE previously believed. Nearly half of Monongalia County’s soldiers who enlisted in 1861 came from outside the county. The men who joined the 3rd and 7th West Virginia Infantry regiments consisted of sixty-eight Monongalia residents, two from neighboring Preston County, but also fifty-one from Pennsylvania. Of those, forty-eight came from Greene County, directly across the border, and one each from Indiana, Fayette, and Allegheny Counties. Some may have had kinship ties in Pennsylvania, yet the large number of men from Greene County, seventeen of the forty-eight, suggests active recruitment there. Only one soldier came from a slaveholding family. Henry Lazier of Morgantown, a 29-year old merchant, lived with his father who owned three slaves, one of whom was 107 years old. Most held little wealth if any. As in Hampshire, the large number of outsiders indicates that Monongalians had reservations about contemporary affairs.

Petition from citizens of Monongalia County, requesting West Virginia’s admission into the Union (1862). NATIONAL ARCHIVES

SUMMER 2017 37 VOTING WITH THEIR ARMS

Volunteers for the Union Army assemble in Morgantown, Monongalia County, West Virginia (1861). WEST VIRGINIA AND REGIONAL HISTORY CENTER, WVU LIBRARIES

Monongalia’s Confederates enlisted in response to the fortunes of war. Only six joined in 1861, five of whom marched south to Marion County to join the 31st Virginia Infantry. The remaining man, Lt. Col. Jonathan McGee Heck of the 25th Virginia Infantry, represented the county in the Commonwealth’s secessionist legislature. The remaining twenty-eight who signed up later in the war joined the 20th Virginia Cavalry in response to emancipation. Its colonel, Dudley Evans, was the son of a wealthy farmer. Four men joined in February 1863 after the Wiley Amendment on gradual emancipation came before voters. Several others joined when a Confederate army led by William S. “Grumble” Jones and John D. Imboden raided through central West Virginia from April to May 1863. Their bold act may have convinced previously reluctant men that the Confederate cause could still overturn the “abolitionization” of their home region. None, notably, owned any slaves or came from a slaveholding household. Brothers John and Pierce Jamison joined the 20th Cavalry; both lived with their father John Jamison, a Virginia-born farmer with $10,000 in personal wealth and $1,700 in real estate but no slaves. All but one Monongalia Confederate was born in Virginia; he, Lemon Tennant, was born in Pennsylvania but worked for a Virginia-born farmer. Not all, however, remained with the ranks for long. Thomas H. Steele’s record indicates that he “tested” the rebel cause by joining and then deserting the 20th Cavalry after one week during the Jones-Imboden raid. Although coming from limited sources, these Confederates demonstrate how much anti-Union sentiment lingered late into the war.15

38 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY SCOTT A. MACKENZIE

Even populous and nearly slaveless Ohio County in the northern panhandle also recruited from outside its borders. As the terminus of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad from the east, and the Central Ohio from the west, the city of Wheeling occupied a commanding place in the region. Its mere one hundred slaves toiled among a large (22,422) population that had over one-quarter foreign born people, with many northerners. Yet, enlistment records indicate hesitation among its native-born Virginians. A random sample of thirty-six men who enlisted in the 1st West Virginia Infantry in 1861 indicates that many came Colonel Dudley Evans (1838-1910). from neighboring Ohio and Pennsylvania WEST VIRGINIA AND REGIONAL HISTORY CENTER, counties as well as elsewhere in northwest- WVU LIBRARIES ern Virginia. State natives made up twenty- one of those men, including twelve from the city of Wheeling and four others from elsewhere in the county. Five came from Lewis, Marshall and Monongalia Counties. Ten others lived in neighboring Ohio counties, particularly Belmont and Jefferson, immediately across the river from Wheeling. A further four resided on the other side of the panhandle in Washington County, Pennsylvania. Enlistments from 1862 indicate that more Virginians began to sign up. Of twenty-six soldiers joining the 12th West Virginia Infantry and other units, ten lived in Marshall County, four in Ohio, two in Ritchie, and one in Wetzel. Ohio provided two each from Jefferson and Belmont and one from Gallia, further south along the river. Indiana County, Pennsylvania provided another. Some of the men in either group came from wealthy backgrounds. Jackson D. Porter of the 1st West Virginia Cavalry lived with his mother in Ohio County. The Pennsylvania-born Elizabeth Porter held $12,000 in personal wealth and $2,000 in real estate. Many had family born in one of the three states. Some immigrants appear in the sample, particularly English, Irish and German born. Ohio County’s Confederates, in contrast, tended to be native-born Virginians with ties to slavery. Most joined the Shriver Greys militia company. Of forty recruits found in the census, thirty-six came from Virginia—twenty-six from Wheeling; four from elsewhere in Ohio County; three from Brooke County; two from Marshall, and one from Hancock County, also in the northern panhandle. In contrast to the unionists, a mere four came from across the river in Ohio; three from Belmont, and one from Columbiana County. The census suggests reasons men would cross the border to join the Confederates. Kinship ties may have convinced Virginia-born

SUMMER 2017 39 VOTING WITH THEIR ARMS

Albert Patton of Belmont to enlist. William Garner, also of Belmont, had Irish-born parents but may have previously lived in Virginia, because his sister was born there. Many came from wealthy families, and four came from slaveholding backgrounds. A hostile local population, federal courts liberally handing out treason indictments, and military occupation made these men and their allegiances unwelcome. Further south, Cabell and Wayne Counties offer experiences that contrast with the other four in the sample. If the others had railroads, this remote part of northwestern Virginia had only steamboat service to connect it to the outside world, and those ties bound them just to one northern state, Ohio, and one border state, Kentucky. These factors, combined with the ownership of few slaves should have made them support the Union cause. Instead, they became fanatical Confederates, turning their spot on the Ohio River into a potential Vicksburg. Federal enlistments did not begin until late 1862, when the 3d West Virginia Cavalry opened its ranks. Even then, only six of the forty-one men accredited to Cabell appeared in the 1860 census. And from that small number, only one—Addison Newman—came from the county. The remaining five came from Gallia and Lawrence Counties, across the river in Ohio. The demographics reveal few men of any wealth or status. Only John S. Williams of Gallia had any wealth at all ($800 in personal holdings and $150 in real estate) and had a family. This may indicate that West Virginia recruiters had reached the limit of their pool. With no ties the county, Cabell County’s Union soldiers occupied rather than served the population. Confederates, however, had extensive ties to the community. The South’s recruiters had no difficulties finding men, even in a county so far removed from eastern Virginia. The presence of Albert Gallatin Jenkins, a Harvard-educated lawyer, former U.S. congressman, Confederate congressman, and slaveholder, gave the Confederate cause greater legitimacy. As soon as Virginia seceded, Jenkins organized many men under his personal command. He would lead them until his death in combat in 1864. A sample of eight of his soldiers who joined that year included three other slaveholders. Many men also came from similarly wealthy backgrounds, among them George Holderby, an officer with Company E, 8th Virginia Cavalry, who held $9,500 in personal wealth and $8,500 in real estate, yet lived in a hotel. Of the eight, six lived in Cabell, while two others came from Meigs County, Ohio. One of those, Maurice Pennybacker, was Virginia-born. There was so much Confederate sympa- thy in Wayne that unionists retaliated against their foes Albert Gallatin Jenkins (1830-1864). in November 1861 by burning the town of Guyandotte. WEST VIRGINIA AND REGIONAL HISTORY CENTER, 16 Modern-day Huntington was built nearby. WVU LIBRARIES

40 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY SCOTT A. MACKENZIE

Green Bottom, home of Albert Gallatin Jenkins, in Cabell County, West Virginia (undated). WEST VIRGINIA AND REGIONAL HISTORY CENTER, WVU LIBRARIES

Into 1862 and beyond, Cabell continued providing Confederate soldiers. Of twenty-three men who enlisted after 1861, thirteen came from Cabell, four from Putnam, and one each from Boone, Mason, Brooke (in the northern panhandle), and Greenbrier (to the east along the Shenandoah Valley). It is not clear how the latter two men arrived in Cabell. Most came from wealthy backgrounds. Esom Riggs of the 8th Virginia Cavalry, lived in Cabell County with his mother, who held $4,000 in personal wealth and $3,000 in real estate. Two men came from slaveholding families. Some, like the 16th Virginia Cavalry’s Cpl. Ephraim Kinnaird, held little wealth. The Virginia-born day laborer owned no wealth; his father held just $25 in real estate. More men of similar backgrounds enlisted in 1863 and 1864. John Farley, a Virginia-born farmer with $300 in property, left his wife and five children to join Company D of the 34th Virginia. John Everett, the son of a slaveholder, waited until his eighteenth birthday in 1863 to enlist in the 8th Virginia Cavalry. The wavelike enlistment patterns suggest that Cabell County enthusiastically supported the Confederacy, even if some recruits took a “wait-and-see” approach to the war. Confederate Cabell County’s legacy survives today in Jenkins’s plantation, Greenbottom, now a museum. Wayne County had a similar experience even though it had fewer ties to the slave economy than Cabell. As with its neighbor, no federal soldiers came from within its borders. Postwar records accredited more than 250 Wayne County men entering federal service during the war. Yet, of the 87 men who enlisted in 1861, none lived there. Like Jefferson and Hampshire, much better connected to the slave economy than Wayne, 82 men came from neighboring Lawrence

SUMMER 2017 41 VOTING WITH THEIR ARMS

County, Ohio, and another five joined from Boyd County, Kentucky. One of those, William Kennedy, was an Irish-born blacksmith with $200 in property. The records confirm that many men had ties to two or even all three of these counties. William Hall, for instance, who enlisted in the 4th West Virginia Infantry in December 1861, was born in Ohio and lived in Boyd County with his Virginia- born father. Few had any personal or family wealth. Even fewer had families. One exception, Illinois-born John McCommas of Lawrence County, left a wife and six children behind to serve in Battery B, 1st West Virginia Light Artillery. Confederates had no trouble finding men in Wayne. Over 450 recruits joined its Confederate units during the war. Recruiting began as soon as Virginia seceded. The example set by community leader Milton J. Ferguson, a local attorney, judge, and slaveholder, encouraged men to sign up, much as Jenkins had in Cabell. Of the sample from 1861, all came from Wayne, while no federals did. Moreover, all but one were Virginia-born. That one, Wales-born James Corns, a stonemason with a wife and five children, became colonel of the 8th Virginia Cavalry. None owned slaves, and few had much wealth. The men who enlisted in 1862, possibly inspired by Loring’s invasion of the Kanawha Valley, consisted of much wealthier men. Harrison D. Stuart of the 8th Virginia Cavalry had no property of his own, but his father, Virginia-born William Stuart, held $2,400 in personal wealth and $2,000 in real estate. Of thirty-one men in the sample, twenty-three came from Wayne, one from Logan, and two from Cabell. Four came from other states, including one each from Pike, Lawrence, and Boyd counties in Kentucky and another from Lawrence County, Ohio. That man, Hiram Grizzle of the 16th Virginia Cavalry, was Virginia-born and may have returned home to fight for his family. These tight local connections limited the appeal of unionism in Wayne. Unfortunately for Ferguson, Stuart, and Grizzle, their opponents found all the recruits they needed across the river in Ohio. It is no surprise that the local airport is named for Ferguson. Clearly, slavery influenced sectional choices among West Virginia’s soldiers. Enlistment patterns in the six sampled counties indicate strong correlations between slaveholding and military service. This observation challenges the idea spread by Governor Boreman’s inaugural address. Slavery was, in fact, extremely important to West Virginia’s formation; the region’s political history consisted of frequent defenses against antislavery elements. West Virginians initially resisted secession as a menace to slavery’s existence. Yet, when war began the imperative to protect the institution outweighed many commitments to the Union. The six counties studied in this essay indicate how slavery influenced enlistments. Jefferson and Hampshire each had large numbers of slaves and subsequently became strongly secessionist despite being linked to northern states. Ohio and Monongalia had very few slaves and extensive transportation links to Ohio and Pennsylvania, states from which it needed to recruit. Wayne and Cabell contrast

42 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY SCOTT A. MACKENZIE with the others. Despite having few slaves and still fewer ties to the outside world, they both strongly supported the Confederacy. The presence of two powerful slaveholding leaders turned their citizens into rebels in areas far removed from the centers of the Confederacy. In short, they voted with their arms. These findings should convince scholars and the public to rethink West Virginia’s origins. The absence of Union soldiers from four of these counties, and large numbers of outside recruits from the other two, indicates much weaker support for the Union cause than previously believed. Even then, many unionists had more conservative leanings that put them closer to the secessionists than other loyalists. As such, West Virginia was a more divided place than Governor Boreman’s words would lead us to believe. In the end, neither alienation nor neglect divided Virginia. Slavery did. People today may take the issue for granted, a legacy of a century of misleading history. However, support for slavery moti- vated contemporaries to stop men like Boreman who dared to turn slaveholding Virginians into abolitionist West Virginians. Slavery was, therefore, as important to the Mountain State as it was to any other border state, and future accounts should see its formation in this light. Many West Virginians voted with their arms to maintain the peculiar institution within their state.

Map of the New State of West Virginia. New York Herald, December 14, 1862. WEST VIRGINIA STATE ARCHIVES

SUMMER 2017 43 VOTING WITH THEIR ARMS

1 The standard works on West Virginia’s formation are original Constitution of the State, and have clung to it Virgil A. Lewis, History of West Virginia in Two Parts with the utmost tenacity ever since; they have collected (Philadelphia: Hubbard Brothers, 1889); Charles Henry heavy taxes from us, and have spent large sums in the Ambler, Sectionalism in Virginia 1776–1861 (1964; construction of railroads and canals in the East, but have 2nd ed., Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, withheld appropriations from the West; they have refused 2008); Richard Orr Curry, A House Divided: Statehood to make any of the modern improvements by which trade Politics and the Copperhead Movement in West Virginia and travel could be carried on from the one section to the (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1964). On other, thus treating us as strangers; our people could not how little the literature has changed in a century, see get to the Capital of their State by any of the usual modes James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War of traveling, without going through the State of Maryland Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 297–98; and the District of Columbia.” “Inaugural Address of Allen C. Guelzo, Fateful Lightning: A New History of Governor Arthur I. Boreman, June 20, 1863.” See John the Civil War and Reconstruction (New York: Oxford C. Inscoe, Mountain Masters: Slavery and Sectional Conflict University Press, 2012), 367; William A. Link, Roots in Western North Carolina (Knoxville: University of of Secession: Slavery and Politics in Antebellum Virginia Tennessee Press, 1987); John C. Inscoe and Gordon B. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), McKinney, Heart of Confederate Appalachia: Western North 9. “Inaugural Address of Governor Arthur I. Boreman, Carolina in the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North June 20, 1863,” West Virginia, Department of History Carolina Press, 2000); Martin Crawford, Ashe County’s and Culture, A State of Convenience: The Creation of West Civil War: Community and Society in the Appalachian South Virginia, accessed February 7, 2017, http://www.wvcul- (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001); Noel ture.org/History/government/governors/boremania.html. C. Fisher, Partisan Politics and Guerrilla Warfare in East Tennessee, 1860–1869 (Chapel Hill: University of North 2 Ohio County had 281, or 5 percent of its population Carolina Press, 1997); W. Todd Groce, Mountain Rebels: enslaved in 1790; Monongalia had 154, or 3 percent; East Tennessee Confederates in the Civil War, 1860–1870 Harrison had sixty-seven slaves, or 3 percent. The thirty- (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1999); five counties that made up the region of northwestern Kenneth W. Noe, Southwest Virginia’s Railroad (Urbana: Virginia, defined by those north of the Kanawha River University of Illinois Press, 1994); Kim Gruenwald, River and west of the Shenandoah Valley, include Hampshire, of Enterprise: The Commercial Origins of Regional Identity Monongalia, Ohio, Harrison, Hardy, Randolph, in the Ohio Valley, 1790–1850 (Bloomington: Indiana Pendleton, Kanawha, Brooke, Wood, Mason, Cabell, University Press, 2002), 150–56; Otis K. Rice and Stephen Tyler, Lewis, Nicholas, Preston, Morgan, Logan, W. Brown, West Virginia: A History (1985; 2nd ed., Fayette, Jackson, Marshall, Braxton, Marion, Wayne, Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1993), 100–101. Barbour, Ritchie, Taylor, Doddridge, Gilmer, Wetzel, Boone, Hancock, Putnam, and Wirt. Pleasants, Upshur, 5 Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, Aug. 5, 1857, Jan. 11, Calhoun, Roane, Tucker, Clay, and Webster each joined 1860; Fairmont True Virginian, Sept. 7, 1857; Cooper’s by 1860. Berkeley and Jefferson were initially included in Clarksburg Register, Sept. 25, 1857. the new state, but their populations resisted the measure until the Supreme Court ordered their accession. Data 6 John David Bladek, “‘Virginia Is Middle Ground’: The compiled from Historical Census Browser, University of Know-Nothing Party and the Virginia Gubernatorial Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center, accessed Election of 1855,” Virginia Magazine of History and July 22, 2012, http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/collec- Biography 106 (1998): 119–28. The Republican Party’s tions/stats/histcensus/index.html, site discontinued. weak showing in northwestern Virginia merits its reduc- tion to a footnote. By comparison, Lincoln received 3 See David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed: Four British more support in Delaware, Maryland, and Missouri and Folkways in America (New York: Oxford University Press, about the same in Kentucky. Statewide, the Republicans 1989); Otis K. Rice, The Allegheny Frontier: West Virginia won 1.13 percent of Virginia’s votes. The Republicans Beginnings, 1730–1830 (Lexington: University Press of received 23.72 percent in Delaware (Breckinridge won), Kentucky, 1970); Allison G. Freehling, Drift towards 2.48 percent in Maryland (Breckinridge won), 10.28 Dissolution: The Virginia Slavery Debate of 1831–1832 percent in Missouri (Douglas won), and 0.93 percent in (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982); Kentucky (Bell won). David Liep, U.S. Election Atlas, Alan Taylor, The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in accessed February 4, 2017, http://uselectionatlas.org/. Virginia, 1772–1832 (New York: Norton, 2014). See Richard G. Lowe, Republicans and Reconstruction in Virginia, 1856–1870 (Charlottesville: University Press to 4 In his inaugural address, Arthur I. Boreman summed Virginia, 1991); Link, Roots of Secession; see also William up this point this way: “The unfairness and inequality of E. Gienapp, Origins of the Republican Party, 1852–1856 legislation is manifest on every page of the statute book; (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). they had an unjust majority in the Legislature by the

44 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY SCOTT A. MACKENZIE

7 Daniel G. Crofts, Reluctant Confederates: Upper South They Fought For,” inSister States, Enemy States: The Civil Unionists in the Secession Crisis (Chapel Hill: University War in Kentucky and Tennessee, eds. Kent Dollar, Larry H. of North Carolina Press, 1989). For Virginia conven- Whiteaker, and W. Calvin Dickinson (Lexington: University tion proceedings, see William W. Freehling and Craig Press of Kentucky, 2009). M. Simpson, eds., Showdown in Virginia: The 1861 Convention and the Fate of the Union (Charlottesville: 12 On guerilla forces, see Kenneth W. Noe, “Who Were the University of Virginia Press, 2010). Bushwhackers? Age, Class, Kin, and Western Virginia’s Confederate Guerrillas, 1861–1862,” Civil War History 49 8 “Clarksburg Convention,” and “Proceedings of the First (March 2003): 5–31. The data for all Union soldiers and Wheeling Convention, May 14, 1861,” available online most Confederates came from the database published by the at West Virginia, Department of History and Culture, George Tyler Moore Center at Shepherd University. The rest, A State of Convenience: The Creation of West Virginia, mainly Confederates from Wayne, Cabell and Monongalia accessed August 1, 2016, http://www.wvculture.org/ counties, comes from a list in Jack L. Dickinson’s Tattered history/statehood/clarksburgconvention.html, and http:// Uniforms and Bright Bayonets: West Virginia’s Confederate www.wvculture.org/history/statehood/wheelingconven- Soldiers (Huntington, WV: Marshall University Library tion10514.html. For two recent works on Lincoln’s Associates, 1995) and the USGENWEB Archives site border state policies, see James L. Oakes, Freedom for Ohio County’s Shriver Greys, accessed July 22, 2012, National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, http://files.usgwarchives.net/wv/ohio/military/shriver-arc. 1861–1865 (New York: Norton, 2013) and William C. txt. Confederate Military History Extended Edition: A Library Harris, Lincoln and the Border States: Preserving the Union of Confederate States History in Seventeen Volumes, ed. Gen. (Manhattan: University Press of Kansas, 2011). Clement A. Evans of Georgia (1899; rep., Wilmington, NC: Broadfoot, 1987), 2:106–8. 9 Freehling and Simpson, Showdown in Virginia; William P. Cooper to Letcher, April 23, 1861, and James M. I cross-referenced these with relevant monographs from H. Beale to Letcher, April 29, 1861, both in Virginia. the Virginia Regimental History Series, listed in the notes Governor (1860–1864: Letcher) Executive papers of below. My data set uses only men identifiable in the cen- Governor John Letcher, 1859–1863, Accession 36787, sus, available online at Ancestry.com. In many cases, this State Government Records Collection, Library of number amounted to no more than one quarter of those Virginia, Richmond, Virginia; Kanawha Valley Star listed on the rolls. Many had either similar names—for (Charleston, VA), April 30, 1861. example, John Smith or variation thereof, or two or more men of similar age in the same county. 10 The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 128 vols. 13 Millard K. Bushong, A History of Jefferson County, West (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1880–1901), ser. 1, vol. 2:51; Virginia (Charles Town, WV: Jefferson, 1941). Ethan Rafuse, McClellan’s War: The Failure of Moderation in the Struggle for the Union (Bloomington: Indiana 14 Roger U. Delauter, 18th Virginia Cavalry (2nd ed., University Press, 2005), 100–101. Lynchburg, VA: H. E. Howard, 1985), 1–3. See also Stephen G. Smith, “Secession, War and Rebirth: The 11 Mark A. Snell, West Virginia and the Civil War: Mountaineers Civil War in West Virginia’s South Branch Valley of the Are Always Free (Charleston, SC: History Press, 2011); see Potomac” (Ph.D. diss., West Virginia University, 2000). also Mountaineers of the Blue and Gray: The Civil War and West Virginia, CD-ROM (Shepherdstown, WV: George 15 Richard L. Armstrong, 19th and 20th Virginia Cavalry Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War, 2008). (Lynchburg, VA.: H. E. Howard, 1994), 243; Spencer C. Numerous works have investigated the social backgrounds Tucker, Brigadier General John D. Imboden: Confederate of Confederate soldiers; these include Joseph T. Glatthaar, Commander in the Shenandoah (Lexington: University General Lee’s Army: From Victory to Collapse (New York: Free Press of Kentucky, 2003), 112. See also Mark E. Bell, Press, 2008) and the accompanying Soldiering in the Army “‘In the Hearts of Their Countrymen as True Heroes’: of Northern Virginia: A Statistical Portrait of the Troops Who A Socio-Economic, Political, and Military Portrait of Served under Robert E. Lee (Chapel Hill: University of North the 1st Virginia (U.S.) Infantry, 1861” (M.A. thesis, Carolina Press, 2011); Michael D. Pierson, Mutiny at Fort Shippensburg University, 2000). Jackson: The Untold Story of the Fall of New Orleans (Chapel The Civil War in Cabell County, West Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009); Mark A. 16 Joe Geiger Jr., Virginia, 1861–1865 Weitz, A Higher Duty: Desertion among Georgia Troops during (Charleston, WV: Pictorial

the Civil War (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005); Histories, 1991), 55–64. See also “War-Time Martin Crawford, Ashe County’s Civil War: Community Reminiscences of James D. Sedinger Company E, 8th West Virginia History and Society in the Appalachian South (Charlottesville: Virginia Cavalry (Border Rangers),” University Press of Virginia, 2001); Groce, Mountain Rebels; 51 (1992): 55–78. The remaining man was Neal Bryan, Kenneth W. Noe, “Battle against Traitors”: Unionist Middle born in Ohio to an Ohio father and a Maine mother; his reasons for joining are unclear. Tennesseans in the Ninth Kentucky Infantry and What

SUMMER 2017 45 Insanity in Civil War Ohio Ann Clymer Bigelow

uring the Civil War, who suffered war-related mental breakdowns so severe that they were admitted to Ohio’s insane asylums? Patient records that became accessible to the public in 2016 provide an answer to that Dquestion. Individuals can be identified by name and situated within the war’s unfolding events. Their behavior before their admission in the hospital can be observed, and some notion of their medical and psychological treatment can be gleaned from the records. This newly available evidence represents one small chapter in the history of humanity’s recurring struggles with mental illness and offers important insights into the psychological trauma wrought by the Civil War.1 During the 1850s, it was a truism in the northern U.S. that the frantic pace of life, the greed and the ambition that were everywhere on display caused an increase in insanity. “Is it not to the habits, the customs, the temptations of civilized life and society” that mental illness is becoming more common? asked Dorothea Dix, the indefatigable campaigner for new asylums. According to Dr. Edward Jarvis, who ran an asylum in Massachusetts, “the ambition of some leads them…to strive for more than they can grasp,” and as a result, “mental powers are strained to their utmost tension.” He concluded that insanity was “a part of the price we pay for civilization.”2 The coming of the Civil War jolted both the superintendents of mental institutions and the general populace. It focused people’s attention on the new tasks at hand, it required discipline, and it gave “steel and purpose to minds previously distracted.” Dr. Henry M. Harlow, superintendent of the Maine Insane Asylum, beheld “the awakening…of love of country.” “Away with melancholy is the tune for us women nowadays,” wrote one Massachusetts housewife. The superintendent of Washington, D.C.’s Government Hospital for the Insane saw “more ear- nest devotion to healthier objects than was largely the case amid the apathies and self-indulgences of the long-continued peace and prosperity that pre- ceded the great struggle.” Despite all the new stresses people were confronting as the war began, rates of 3 insanity did not increase. Dr. Edward Jarvis (1803-1884). AMERICAN STATISTICAL ASSOCIATION

46 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY ANN CLYMER BIGELOW

Indeed, given that pattern across the North, it becomes less of a surprise to learn that admissions to its insane asylums for specifically war-related derangement were relatively rare in Ohio during the Civil War. Dr. Oliver M. Langdon, superintendent of Cincinnati’s Longview Asylum, wrote: “Out of the whole number [of patients] received, and this has not been greater than usual, but few have been attributed to the war, and most of those, in my opinion, had another origin.” Dr. Richard Gundry of the Southern Ohio Lunatic Asylum in Dayton concurred: “So far…as the existence of the war has taught those at home to think less anxiously about their own immediate cares Dr. Oliver M. Langdon (1817-1878). Daniel Drake and trials and interests, and to feel more and His Followers: Historical and Biographical Sketches, 1785-1909, (Harvey Publishing earnestly for others…so far it has tended to Company, 1909). lessen rather than increase the liability to CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY mental disease.” During the war, only 10 of the 74 patients admitted to Longview (records survive only for male patients from 1863 to 1865), 52 of the 651 admitted to the Central Ohio Lunatic Asylum in Columbus, 7 of the 418 at Cleveland’s Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum, and 21 of the 409 admitted at Dayton suffered from explicitly war-related ailments. The great majority of patients who entered Ohio’s asylums in those years were deemed insane for the perennial mid-nineteenth century reasons: postpartum depression, “change of life,” masturbation, intemperance, epilepsy. It is also important to note that all patients were white.4 Many factors contributed to keeping Ohioans and other northerners sane during the Civil War. Dr. Ralph Hills, superintendent of the Columbus asylum, commented in his 1864 annual report that both men and women were busier. “This diversity of employment, and more constant exercise, give greater vigor and tone to the mind, and enable it better to bear the shocks of grief, and the wear and tear of anxious cares and responsibilities.” Beyond Ohio, Dr. John P. Gray, superintendent of the New York State Lunatic Asylum in Utica, suggested in his 1862 report that “a people educated to rely for success on individual efforts, and to aspire to promotion and power through merit and perseverance, are undoubtedly well able to withstand a great public shock.… The lofty spirit of patriotism and benevolence…is…also pertinent.” And Dr. John S. Butler, superintendent of the Connecticut Retreat for the Insane, wrote in 1865: “Before the rebellion, we were as a people sinking into a selfish materialism…[with] the consequent rapid

SUMMER 2017 47 INSANITY IN CIVIL WAR OHIO

increase of insanity.… Now in this new and higher life upon which we have entered, wealth seems as if deemed but the handmaid of a charity that never faileth.”5 Social expectations surely boosted morale in Ohio and elsewhere. The widespread image of the patriotic mother valiantly sending her son off to war strengthened women’s resolve. As for the soldiers, they believed they were fighting for hearth and home: “to be a good son, a good brother, a good husband and father, and to be a good citizen meant trying to be a good soldier.” “Rally ‘Round the Flag, Boys” and “Just Before the Battle, Mother” rang in their ears, injecting Dr. John P. Gray (1825-1886). spirit. One historian writes that the resilience U.S. NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE of many women was due to their having likely suffered the deaths of infants and children.6

Title Page of “Just Before the Battle, Mother” (Root & Cady, 1863). LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

48 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY ANN CLYMER BIGELOW

Religion mattered a great deal to the mental health of Ohioans and other northerners. The belief that God governed human lives infused citizens’ patriotism with “godly zeal.” For example, William Patrick, the mayor of Urbana, wrote a friend on Christmas Day 1861 that he had undergone a long period of “gloom and despondency…all growing out of the state of the times,” but when he came to a realization of God’s sovereignty, his “melancholy vanished.” Religious devotion steadied women especially; it was integral to their lives, and it helped them cope with the blows of the war.7 Insanity then as now took several broad forms. There was major depression, then termed “melancholia.” There was “monomania,” which signified obsession. And there was “mania,” which encompassed anxiety, panic attacks, flashbacks, and phobias. Bipolar illness was categorized as “mania” or “melancholia.” Schizophrenia, with its delusions, withdrawal, and paranoia, was not identified as a specific ailment. If there appear to be a great many more manic than other types of cases, that was likely because these would have been the most difficult patients for families to care for at home.8 By 1861, Ohio was relatively well-provided with mental hospitals. Three were state institutions. In 1860, the Columbus asylum, which had opened in 1838, had 330 patients, drawn from the broad central swath of the state’s counties. The Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum, located outside Cleveland in Newburgh, opened in 1855. In 1860 it had 149 patients, who came from the northern tier of counties. Dayton’s hospital, also opened in 1855, drew its 178 patients from the state’s southern counties, excepting Hamilton. Longview, in Cincinnati, opened in 1860; with 585 patients that year, it was funded and governed jointly by the state of Ohio and the board of Hamilton County commission- ers. Unfortunately, even this number of asylums couldn’t treat all of Ohio’s insane, who in the 1860 census were reported to number 2,293. As a consequence, chronic cases were discharged when emergent cases were admitted, and many of the chronic patients ended up in county poorhouses (called “infirmaries” by then) or county jails. The cases described here, then, were mostly of recent origin.9 All four institutions were led by doctors experienced in the “moral treatment” favored then, which combined psychological and medicinal therapies. Dr. Hills of Columbus, forty-one years old when the war broke out, had studied as a young man with his uncle, Dr. Eli Todd, a leader in the psychiatry of the day and superintendent of the Hartford (Connecticut) Retreat for the Insane. Cleveland’s Dr. Oscar C. Kendrick, aged thirty-nine in 1861, had served an apprentice-

Dr. Richard Gundry (1829-1891). ship as first assistant physician under his father, Elijah, at PARKER GUNDRY TROSTEL PERSONAL COLLECTION the Columbus asylum from 1852 to 1854. Dr. Gundry,

SUMMER 2017 49 INSANITY IN CIVIL WAR OHIO

thirty-two in 1861, was the assistant physician at the Columbus asylum from 1855 to 1858 and at Dayton from that year until becoming superintendent there in 1862. And Dr. Langdon, forty-four, an established general practitioner in Cincinnati, super- intended the city’s temporary Lick Run asylum before he opened Longview in 1859.10 Among the causes of mental illness directly attributed to the war, so- called war excitement accounted for far more than any other, being blamed in some thirty-four cases in the four asylums. It’s clear from the context that this “excitement” was akin to worry, stress, anxiety, panic, and even terror. Ten patients at the Dayton asylum landed there because of war excitement, some manic, others melancholy. Four of them, a carpenter and three farmers, were in and out of the asylum in a month or so during the first year of the war. But war excitement could stretch into major emotional disability. Barbara Burrier, a thirty-five-year-old mother of three from Carroll County, was said to have been insane for a year when she was admitted to the Columbus asylum on July 26, 1864. On August 12, the hospital staff reported her anxious to go home, and on October 7, when the attending physician found her “restless and uneasy,” he prescribed a mixture of one ounce of tincture of opium, three ounces of iron and hemlock, two ounces of tincture of wild cherry and two ounces of water in doses of half an ounce three times a day. Asylum physicians widely used opium as a narcotic in cases of mania, with the wild cherry added for flavoring; the combination of iron and hemlock, also widely prescribed, was a tonic that quieted restlessness. On February 1, 1865, after refusing for some time to eat, she was fed with a stomach tube, which she claimed nearly killed her. On May 1, she was still anxious to go home, and on July 10 she tried in vain to escape and was violent toward the steward, who was restrain- ing her. She was still at the asylum in March 1867.11

Southern Ohio Lunatic Asylum in Dayton (c. 1880). SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES, WRIGHT STATE UNIVERSITY

50 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY ANN CLYMER BIGELOW

Elijah Robb fared much better. A nineteen-year-old unmarried farmer from Licking County, he had been overly excited for three months when admitted at Columbus after the war, on June 12, 1865. Though he had never been a soldier, his excitement took the form of the delusion that he “thinks he has supreme military command and when his orders are interfered with is apt to be violent.” On June 26, he escaped the asylum by breaking an iron window sash and letting himself down on tied-together sheets. He was said to appear aware that he had had delusions, and after he consented not to flee and to do various chores around the asylum, his condition improved, and he was discharged on June 1, 1866.12 The case of John W. Kees, editor of theCircleville Watchman, a Democratic weekly, played out in public view. In 1862, his rhetoric grew more and more aggressively antiwar and proslavery. In his June 13 issue, for example, he wrote: “Will the hundreds of thousands of noble young men who have volunteered…be made the fiery instrument to gratify abolition revenge and abolition fanaticism, in violation of the Constitution and common Justice?” Savaging “the Abolition dogs and libertines who are prosecuting this infamous civil war for the freedom and equality with us of the dusky negro,” he dared Union troops to “shoot the infamous wretch” Union general Benjamin Butler “like they would a reptile or a dog.” After giving a speech in the village of Williamsburg, he thundered: “The Abolition, negro-thieving scoundrels of Williamsburg have not got as much courage or gentlemanly breeding as is generally found amongst insects. They are a dirty, thieving, mobocratic pack of cowardly white niggers.” And after a bellicose speech in nearby Washington Court House, when one audience member “called us a damned traitor, we instantly struck him in his filthy, polluted mouth.” The bruise Kees got in return, he wrote, “we carry…as a memento of free speech in America, under a negro government of tyrants and military despots.”13 The night of June 29 agents of the federal War Department arrested Kees at his home, charging him with publishing “treasonable articles.” They seized his office, suppressed the newspaper, then drove him to Washington, D.C., and incarcerated him in the Old Capitol Prison for a month. Kees’s Circleville lawyer, Joseph Olds, later testified at a hearing in the Ohio House that he and his partner had considered Kees insane for over a month before he was arrested. “It was a matter of public notoriety and common talk in Circleville for some time…that he was deranged in his mind. From being a quiet and rather retiring man, he suddenly became quar- relsome, and engaged in a number of unnecessary quarrels; and became also very reckless about money matters, while he had before been a careful and prudent man.” On October 25 Kees was admitted to the Columbus asylum, suffering from “overexertion and excited state of the country,” in the admitting physician’s words. He died there on November 25, 1867.14 War excitement was attributed mainly to civilians, but there are examples of servicemen with it as well. In these cases, we could well think in terms of

SUMMER 2017 51 INSANITY IN CIVIL WAR OHIO

post-traumatic stress disorder. James H. Wall, a twenty-four-year-old schoolteacher from Union County, appears to have had a mild case. He joined Company I in the 5th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry on February 5, 1865, as a private. According to the commanding major’s report, the regiment encamped near Monroe’s Crossroads, North Carolina the night of March 9. When they awoke the next morning, the camp was overrun with the enemy, and the sides proceeded to contest the ground “inch by inch.” The major called it “one of the most ter- rific hand-to-hand encounters I ever witnessed.” After the war, on June 12, 1865, Wall was admitted to the Columbus asylum, allegedly having been insane for two weeks. The admitting physician noted that he was “much excited and incoherent but not malicious or suicidal.” The next day, still very excited, he was given tinc- tures of opium and digitalis, a tranquilizer in cases of mania. On June 17 he was so agitated that they put him in restraints. He seemed dejected and weak, so they prescribed one ounce of whiskey three times a day. On the nineteenth, he was still very excited, so his opium dose was tripled. From then on, he improved, until he was deemed recovered and was discharged on December 23.15

Central Ohio Lunatic Asylum in Columbus. The 1860 Annual Report (Richard Nevin, State Printer, 1861). OHIO HISTORY CONNECTION

William H. Hunter, a twenty-six-year-old teamster and native of Cincinnati, seemed to have been greatly affected by the Battle of Shiloh, in which he fought on April 6 and 7, 1862, with the 57th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Another participant in that ferocious battle wrote that “some of the wounded were ‘so near dead from exposure they were mostly insane.’” Hunter deserted his regiment afterward at Memphis, went home, and eluded officials for a year. He was greatly unnerved when military authorities finally arrested him, and even though the probate court

52 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY ANN CLYMER BIGELOW released him, “he has not been entirely rational at any time since,” according to his records at Longview. He was admitted to the asylum on November 2, 1863, having been troubled for six or eight months. At first very depressed, he turned “violent and combative,” talking mostly about the war. Most of the time he sat “with his eyes closed and body bent forward,…and it is with great difficulty that he can be aroused or got to speak.” The attendants applied ammoniacal liniment, a counterirritant, along his spine and fed him when he failed to eat on his own, but as of February 1, 1864, he was much worse. He lived until 1907, however.16 Eric T. Dean Jr. explains in his book Shook over Hell that during the Civil War the U.S. Army, with an eye to keeping manpower levels high, refused to grant dis- charges to any soldiers with psychiatric ailments who had not collapsed physically, unless the ailment was “pronounced.” Under these circumstances, many soldiers may have concluded “that desertion was the only escape valve, and it seems likely that many of the three hundred thousand men who deserted from the Union and Confederate armies were suffering from some form of what we would regard today as a stress disorder.” This seems quite clear in the case of William Hunter.17 It was also the case for Jaberry Smith. Conscripted by the Rebels in December 1862, he deserted twice and came into the Federal lines in May 1863. A twenty- eight-year-old Tennessee farmer and family man, he told Longview asylum staff- ers, “Gen. Grant told all who wished to come north to follow him.” But he fell ill with dysentery, then was sent to Longview, where he was “very noisy” and “imagined someone wished to poison him…and that the poison was coming out through his skin.” Attendants confined him to the “strong room” and gave him a cathartic for his dysentery. The first few nights he tore up his bedclothes, but after a week or two he quieted down, became more rational, in the staff’s judgment, and was discharged as cured on November 24, 1863.18 There was also Obed Dennis, a twenty-seven-year-old plasterer from Cincinnati, who, according to his asylum records, “had joined the army and was tired of acting soldier and thought the best way to avoid serving longer was to take a fit of insanity and be sent to the asylum.” He was admitted to Longview on April 1, 1863. He spent his days playing billiards and was perfectly content to remain at the asylum until the staff put him to work, at which point he decided he was well enough to leave the hospital. His ruse succeeded, and he was discharged “cured” on April 23.19 A soldier—a non-deserter—whose emotional health broke down completely from the stress of multiple battles was Andrew Jackson Dusenbury, called “Jackson.” Born in 1830, he was a farmer from Perry County, married with three children. He served in Company D, 30th OVI, which fought in the Second Battle of Bull Run, the Battles of South Mountain, Antietam, and Vicksburg, and on November 25, 1863, “the debacle” at Missionary Ridge. In March 1864, the regiment was sent home on furlough for thirty days (nine months after

SUMMER 2017 53 INSANITY IN CIVIL WAR OHIO

which a fourth Dusenbury baby was born). Then it fought at Atlanta, Jonesboro, Sherman’s March, and Bentonville. The regiment was said to have covered thirteen thousand miles by the time it was mustered out on August 22, 1864.20 The many battles’ cumulative effect had such a dire impact on Dusenbury that his wife, Sarah, brought him to the Columbus asylum on May 31, 1865. The admitting physician recorded the cause as “excitement during the Battle of Mission Ridge.” He had been insane for nine months and was suicidal. His excitement was termed “paroxysmal.” He said he couldn’t see the use of being there, away from his family, and he tried to escape every chance he got. On September 12, he was causing a lot of trouble trying to get out, and he broke a picture and threw it out the window, after which he was moved to a more heavily guarded ward. He was given a cold shower on October 16, after which he quieted down. In January 1866 an attendant brought a deck of cards to the ward, and that “wakened him up.” According to the asylum record, he became a “capital hand at seven up,” but by June he was “very cross and trying to escape…fretting greatly and crying to go to his ‘brother Joe’s.’” By January 1867 he was “moody and sullen.” He died in the asylum on January 22, 1868.21 Soldiers frequently cited exposure as the cause of their insanity. Dean describes what the men meant when they complained of “exposure in the army” and claimed it as the basis of their disabilities. He says all soldiers were “routinely exposed to the elements. These men were expected to sleep out in the open on the ground in the middle of winter or in the midst of a driving rainstorm.” Frost, snow, and mud likely added to the ubiquity of disease and the threat of attack, and one can “understand exactly what this ‘exposure’ was, and how it shattered men’s constitutions and health.”22 Of the seven patients admitted to the Cleveland asylum with war-related problems, three were soldiers who suffered from “exposure in camp.” One of these was Samuel McElroy, a single man of twenty from Cuyahoga County, who enlisted in Company D, 23d OVI on May 20, 1861. The regiment, famous for having future presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and William McKinley as members, mustered at Camp Chase, in Columbus, on June 11 and, after training and drill- ing, served in the Kanawha Valley of western Virginia for many months, mainly rounding up the local southern sympathizers while “on small, lonely patrols” and “fighting in pygmy battles.” They then saw serious action in the Battle of South Mountain on September 14, 1862, and three days later at Antietam, where the regiment “suffered 200 casualties but performed superbly.” The 23d also pursued John Morgan during July 1863 and fought on Buffington Island on the nineteenth. Having suffered from mania from exposure for five months, McElroy was admitted to the Cleveland asylum on August 18, 1863. He remained a patient there until March 26, 1865, when he was discharged recovered. Unfortunately, he was back again at the time of the 1880 and 1900 censuses; he died in 1903.23

54 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY ANN CLYMER BIGELOW

Superintendent Hills of the Columbus asylum wrote in his 1862 annual report about the high rate of psychiatric episodes among Ohio soldiers who had had previous attacks. He said, regarding nine men—prisoners of war at Camp Chase and soldiers in the Union army—who were patients at his asylum, that most of them had had previous attacks and that this fact argued for exempting all men from service who had been recently deranged. An example from his practice was Andrew Simpson, a twenty-five-year-old artilleryman from Richland County who was brought in by his mother on July 3, 1862, upon his third attack and second admission, blamed, the record said, on “heredity and hard camp duty.” Hills commented that, above and beyond the fighting, “the irregular mode of living, frequent loss of sleep, occasional deprivation of food, excessive fatigue, and exposure to wet and cold are almost sure to induce insanity in those that are predisposed, and to cause relapses in those recently recovered.”24 One patient admitted to the Cincinnati asylum suffering from exposure came from a prominent abolitionist family. Robert Dion Birney was a son of the early abolitionist James G. Birney, who published Cincinnati’s weekly Philanthropist, had one of his printing presses destroyed by a rioting mob, and ran for president in 1840 and 1844 on the Liberty ticket. Dion’s older brother William rose to major general in the Union army and at Lincoln’s request raised seven regiments of black troops, becoming colonel of the 22d U.S. Colored Troops. Dion’s younger brother David was Dr. Ralph Hills (1810-1879). History of Medicine and Biographical Sketches of the Physicians of Delaware also a major general and formed the County, Ohio, 1804-1910 (Silas W. Fowler, 1910). 23d Pennsylvania Volunteers, called OHIO HISTORY CONNECTION “Birney’s Zouaves.”25 Dion was a pharmacist in Saginaw, Michigan, when he joined the army. He arrived at Camp Graham near Washington, D.C., on January 1, 1862, and served as a first lieutenant in Company F of his brother David’s 23d Regiment. In the Peninsula campaign from March to July 1862 his unit saw heavy action, and, according to his family’s biographer, he “suffered from exposure in the field.” A Civil War historian writes that “many Union soldiers…succumbed to combat exhaustion” in that campaign. “One participant said of his fellow soldiers that they were ‘all reduced to shadows and look as though they were on their last legs. They have a dreamy, listless look as though they were without hope.’” Birney left

SUMMER 2017 55 INSANITY IN CIVIL WAR OHIO

the service that July, having suffered the loss of his young son Dion by drowning. On April 4, 1863, friends admitted him to Longview, saying he had become very melancholy a year earlier over his son’s death.26 At first dejected, Dion later became excited and exhilarated. Astonishingly and perversely, he imagined “that when in the army he killed two thousand ‘Loyal Black Allies.’ Said he was shooting them down twenty two at a shot, when his brother William came up, patted him on the shoulder and said, ‘Go on, Die, you are doing first rate.’” It has been said that when black men joined the northern army, this challenged white men’s masculinity and threatened their manhood. Was this why Dion suffered such a delusion? Or was he subconsciously reject- ing his family’s inclusive attitude? Whatever the reason, he often cried over being kept at the asylum, and he slept badly. The doctor treated him with anodynes to calm him at night and a mixture of iron and hemlock, along with efforts at persuasion. As the weeks went by he declined, presenting “a care-worn, haggard and most distressed countenance,” an attendant noted, and on August 17 he died.27 In another sad case of debility, army friends brought William H. H. Johnson to Longview on April 21, 1865. He was twenty-five, a native of Crawford County, and had shown initial symptoms of insanity two years earlier while in the service. At the suggestion of these friends he got a discharge and went home, in hopes a change of scene would help him, but to no avail. His friends said he was “companionable, dig- nified and honorable,” but he suffered from mental aberrations, prominent among which “he felt that the whole responsibility and management of the war was on himself, that it was being badly managed, that if his advice and counsel had been adopted the results would have been much better, that now all was lost.” The friends assured asylum personnel that Johnson was not suicidal, that he often went hunting, carried a revolver and a Bowie knife, and shaved himself. But when he was given a razor by an asylum attendant he slit his throat, and died on April 23, 1865.28 For John Henrie, Longview was a revolving door. An unmarried twenty-three- year-old Cincinnatian and a cooper by trade, he enlisted in the army in the spring of 1862 but was sent home from Camp Dennison owing to a mental breakdown that allegedly resulted from an attack of measles at the camp. On July 15, 1863, when friends brought him to the asylum, he was very excited, destructive and talkative, mostly about the army. However, within days he calmed down and was released. Right away, though, the record says, “he reenlisted, as he said to obtain the ‘bounty’ offered,…went home, took his fiddle, mounted his horse, and went to the nearest town to regale himself by a little intoxicating jollification.” A few days later he was back at the asylum, where he was treated with “restraints and persuasion,” and on October 14 he was discharged cured.29 Bell Irvin Wiley, in his classic The Life of Billy Yank, wrote that age was an important factor in the likelihood of mental derangement. Soldiers’ youth worked in favor of their mental health, he said: those in their mid-twenties and younger

56 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY ANN CLYMER BIGELOW tended to have better morale than older men. But eight of the ten deranged Ohio soldiers described above were in their twenties. Men over forty suffered the low- est morale, he said, yet we have only one forty-year-old, Dion Birney. “Unmarried men, who for the most part were in the lower age groups, were less susceptible to depression than husbands and fathers. The youngsters pined less for home…and in general proved more adaptable than their elders,” Wiley wrote. Here again our sample suggests otherwise: seven of the ten were apparently single. Of course, Wiley used a much broader cross-section than the Ohio records examined for this study.30 Seven men admitted to the four Ohio asylums attributed their derangement to “anxiety about the draft.” Others who called their problem “war excitement” may have actually been worried about the draft. Inasmuch as President Lincoln issued draft calls on March 14 and July 18, 1864, it is no wonder that five of the seven entered the asylums between April 15 and August 20, 1864.31 Uriah McMachen, admitted at Columbus on April 15, was an unmarried twenty-three-year-old farmer from Stark County, diagnosed with “acute mania” that had begun two weeks earlier. The admitting doctor found him “talkative and at times incoherent.” On May 1, finding him “careless and slovenly in his habits, incoherent and sometimes inclined to violence,” as well as quite thin, the doctor prescribed a mixture of four ounces of iron and hemlock, two ounces of tincture of cinchona (Peruvian bark), half an ounce of tincture of opium, and an ounce and a half of water in half-ounce doses three times daily. He improved over the summer, was found “quite like himself” on October 1, and was discharged recovered on November 23.32 Henry Hensel, also from Stark County, was a forty-two-year-old farmer, married with two children. When he was admitted at Columbus on June 25, 1864, he was said to have been manic for two weeks and was “incoherent and excited but not vicious.” At first the doctor put him on half a grain of morphine at night and a mixture of one ounce of extract of dandelion and one dram of potassium iodide diluted in seven ounces of syrup, half an ounce of which was to be given three times a day. On July 21, the doctor switched him to a mixture of iron and hemlock with tincture of quassia (an antianorexic) diluted in water, half an ounce three times a day. On May 13, 1865, he bolted from a group working in the garden, and when he was found, on July 11, the attendant said he was better than when he had left. He languished, however, then eloped again for another three months. He was finally discharged recovered, but well after the war ended, on May 1, 1867.33 Additional fears stalked other men. James B. Mason of Kentucky, a forty-two- year-old father of six, said he “was accused of being a secessionist” in the fall of 1861. He told the asylum staff that he had been “arrested and kept in a military prison for some time. This circumstance and the suspicion with which he thought he was regarded after his release so preyed upon his spirits that he became melancholy and dejected and convinced he would die.” He entered Longview and was

SUMMER 2017 57 INSANITY IN CIVIL WAR OHIO

discharged, in better spirits, shortly afterward. Jacob Deal, who had fought from 1861 through the Battle of Gettysburg, was sent to Longview for being so fearful that “he climbs the porches and trees, and thus places himself in danger.” After three weeks, he was released to the convalescent corps.34

Longview Asylum in Cincinnati. Titus’ Atlas of Hamilton Co., Ohio (C.O. Titus, 1869). DAVID RUMSEY MAP COLLECTION

Throughout the duration of the war, Ohioans had no way to be certain that the fighting would stay south of the Ohio River. A few went crazy with worry. For example, Amos DeHaven, a forty-three-year-old mechanic from Fredericktown, Knox County, had been manic for two weeks with “fear of invasion of Southern troops” when his wife brought him to the Columbus asylum on May 4, 1861. And on August 4, 1862, the probate judge of Logan County sent Fred Fetzer, a twenty- three-year-old German-born tobacconist, there, too, because he was “fearful secessionists will kill him.” In fact, of course, an invasion by Rebel troops became a reality when John Morgan made his notorious raid across Indiana and southern and eastern Ohio in July 1863. Fear of Morgan landed six Ohioans in an asylum, a small number when one considers the three hundred thousand–plus citizens who lived in the counties affected and had to cope with the enemy in their own front yard.35 On August 5, Jesse Brokaw, a thirty-five-year-old wagonmaker from Moorefield in Harrison County, was admitted to the Columbus asylum after ten days of mania caused, he said, by “fright from Rebel raid.” Morgan and his men had descended on Moorefield on the afternoon of July 24, burning two local bridges as they approached. Morgan napped at the Mills Hotel while his men stole $330 worth of merchandise at George L. Wharton’s store, then demanded dinner at local homes. After four hours the raiders continued their march, leaving Moorefield’s residents terrified in their wake. Brokaw was “very

58 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY ANN CLYMER BIGELOW excited and incoherent” when he came to the asylum, but he gradually quieted down and on December 26 was discharged recovered.36 The raiders never got closer to Zanesville than Eagleport, twenty miles to the south, but the general panic did. Christian Miller, a forty-year-old cabinetmaker and a Zanesville resident, couldn’t bear the stress and ended up at the Columbus asylum on August 6, the cause given as “intemperate use of ardent spirits during the John Morgan excitement.” Two days later Lydia M. Shaw was admitted to the asylum. She was the forty-seven-year-old widow of a bucket manufacturer and mother of four children in Washington County, which the raiders skirted entirely. She had been deranged for three months, the reasons being “ill health and loss of friends, together with ‘Morgan’s Raid.’” The political battle between antiwar Democrats and unionist Republicans was at such a pitch in her community that she was “subject to paroxysms in which she sees danger: persons trying to injure her ‘KC of G Circle,’” the secret Democratic Knights of the Golden Circle. The partisan stresses in Shaw’s community frayed her nerves and she was found to be suicidal. On August 10 the attending doctor prescribed potassium iodide, then on the nineteenth switched her to a mixture of a fluid extract of dandelion, fer- rous carbonate, tincture of gentian, whiskey, sorghum, and essence of wintergreen, given three times a day. By September 1 she was allowed to walk the grounds with another patient for an hour a day. On October 1 she was said to be “much more cheerful of late,” and on the twenty-second she was discharged recovered.37 George W. Campbell, a nineteen-year-old laborer and wagonmaker’s son from Harrison in Hamilton County, was admitted to Longview on December 24, 1863, having had a breakdown six months earlier. The admitting physician wrote: “When Morgan in his raid passed through Harrison this patient was found in an upper room of his house wringing his hands and crying, and saying that the soldiers were going to take and kill him. Since then most of the time he has been indisposed to talk.… He has shown a disposition to injure others and to destroy clothing, furniture and other property.” The raiders had stormed into Harrison at noon on July 13, breaking down shop doors and stealing whatever came to hand. Besides cash, saddles and food, they took ladies’ hats, bolts of cloth, a chafing dish, and even a birdcage with three canaries. When Campbell was first admitted, an attendant had to feed him, and he wouldn’t talk, but a week later he was improved. Still there on January 1, 1864, he was somewhat better.38 Women had their own stresses to deal with during the Civil War. The loss of their husbands’ steady incomes undermined wives’ enthusiasm for their husbands’ patriotism. Ginette Aley has written that “when a soldier enlisted and went off to war, he took his wife’s, children’s, and mother’s futures with him.” “The major fear,” she says, “was losing everything.” Indeed, in Ohio’s Washington County, for example, after their husbands and fathers went into the army fifty- eight mothers and children were left destitute during the four years of the war.39

SUMMER 2017 59 INSANITY IN CIVIL WAR OHIO

Ohio contributed nearly 320,000 soldiers to the Union army, yet, remarkably, extant records reveal only five wives who entered Ohio asylums when their husbands joined up. Here again, though, other women could have labeled their distress “war excitement.” Sarah Baker was twenty-seven years old, a resident of Athens and the mother of Hattie, six, and Charles, nearly four. Her husband, Edward, a farmer, had enlisted on May 2, 1864, in Company B, 141st OVI. She had been paranoid for two weeks when admitted at Columbus on May 25, “excited and melancholy by turns” and convinced she had been poisoned. The doctor found her “low-spirited and full of delusions” and prescribed potassium iodide, but when she began crying very frequently two weeks later he switched her to a mixture of iron and hemlock, tincture of wild cherry and water, to be administered half an ounce three times a day. Six weeks after that, she was noisy, “jumping up and down,” and on July 26 when her head was hot, her eyes “suffused,” and she seemed “bewildered,” he directed that she be given a “sitz bath every night and morn with cold to the head.” Meanwhile, her husband mustered out at Gallipolis on September 3 and came to visit her later that month. On November 11, since she had lately “been seeming quite like herself,” according to the attendant, he took her home, recovered.40 Sarah Jane Hattery was not as fortunate as Sarah Baker. She was a thirty-four- year-old housewife from Tuscarawas County, the mother of boys three years old and two months old. She was said to have been insane for two to three years when admitted at Columbus on July 8, 1862, acutely manic. She was regularly prescribed tincture of opium and customarily spent the day at work in the ironing room, but never regained her sanity and was still in the asylum in May 1867.41 The other three women had more children and thus even more demands placed upon them. Lucinda Adams of Coshocton County was a mother of three. The twenty-four-year-old wife of an oiler at a coal company, she had been depressed for a month when she was admitted, also at Columbus, on August 2, 1861, “suicidal, quiet, incoherent.” Catharine Boehler of Crawford County had four children, the youngest nine months old. Her husband was a carpenter. Aged twenty-six, she had been insane for six months when she entered the asylum on June 4, 1862. And Hester Ann McKnight of Ironton had six children, the youngest only six weeks old, when she arrived at Columbus on November 14, 1864. She had been deranged for five weeks, and the admitting doctor noted the cause as “puerperal and husband being in the army.”42 These northern women, most of them, broke down early as their husbands left for war. Some southern women, on the other hand, seem to have broken down later, as a result of cumulative stresses suffered in the invaded territory. Drew Gilpin Faust writes that “as years passed with no end to war in sight [women felt] a rising sense of personal desperation.” She cites an 1865 diary entry by a Mary Jane Cook Chadick, who wrote: “My nervous attacks…are becoming more frequent of late” and a note written by a Virginia French in

60 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY ANN CLYMER BIGELOW

1863: “I fear that I am giving way at last under this long, long pressure of anxiety and tension upon the nerves.”43 A total of 34,591 Ohio soldiers are thought to have died in the Civil War, but only some half dozen mothers entered an Ohio insane asylum grief-stricken over the death of sons in the army. One was Mary Ann McDonald, a fifty-five-year- old widow from Somerset in Perry County, the mother of eight children. Her son William Patrick was twenty-two when he enlisted in Company G, 31st OVI on September 1, 1861. He died of diarrhea on November 28, 1864, after a minor battle in Sandersville, Georgia, during Sherman’s March to the Sea. Another son, John, brought his mother to the Columbus asylum on May 31, 1865; she had been deranged for three months. On her arrival she was “violent & noisy & very destructive of clothing” and was prescribed a tincture of thirty grains of opium three times a day. On August 12, upon improvement, she was given a mixture of two drams of iron and hemlock three times a day. She was discharged recovered on October 26, only to return in April 1866, depressed and convinced she’d never get well. The doctor put her on five grams of Dover’s powder (a euphoric, consisting of opium and ipecac) every night before bed, and as she brightened in mid-May he prescribed the iron and hemlock mixture again. Her mood wavered from depressed to cheerful and back. As of April 1, 1867, she was still at the asylum, but by the 1870 census she was living with her daughter and family in Somerset, and she survived until 1887.44 Another mother of eight children who lost a son in the war was Ellen Strayer of Amanda in Fairfield County, the wife of a saddler. Her firstborn, John C. Strayer, twenty-one years old in 1860, fought in Company D, 90th Regiment in “the great battle of Chickamauga,” as the Lancaster Gazette wrote, and was badly wounded in both legs on the first day of the battle, September 19, 1863. He died of his injuries on December 16. His mother, forty-eight, was brought to the Columbus asylum by her husband Abram on June 13, 1864; she had been in a state of depression for the six months since her son’s death. The asylum records called her “melancholy” and “despondent” and said she “feels she is lost and ruined.” She was prescribed a “whiskey sling for a few days,” and when she was still depressed in July she received a mixture of eight grains of morphine and one ounce fluid extract of valerian diluted with syrup to three ounces, one teaspoon of this mixture every night at bedtime. She brightened, and on November 1, 1865, she was discharged recovered.45 Ohio fathers, too, grieved their dead soldier sons. Ellen Mary Strayer (1814-1902). Daniel S. Disher, a well-to-do farmer in Preble County, JOHN H. HOMRIGHOUS lost his son George, who had enlisted as a corporal in PERSONAL COLLECTION

SUMMER 2017 61 INSANITY IN CIVIL WAR OHIO

Company B, 156th Ohio National Guard on May 17, 1864, at the age of twenty. His was one of three regiments of untested 100-days troops. He fought in one minor battle, the Battle of Folck’s Mill, also known as the Battle of Cumberland, on August 1, 1864, in northern Maryland. The troops fired six pieces of artillery on the Confederate cavalry, with an inconclusive result. Evidently wounded in the battle, Disher mustered out on September 1 at Camp Dennison, where he died on October 5. His father was admitted to the Dayton asylum on October 12 with signs of mania that had lasted two weeks. His stay in the asylum calmed his nerves, and he was discharged recovered on November 9.46 When all was said and done, one wonders why the Civil War seems to have deranged so few Ohioans. The asylum superintendents emphasized societal factors, which surely played a major role. Public expectations and religion certainly buoyed up many. Not a few queasy draftees no doubt paid the $300 commuta- tion fee to send substitutes into the army. Some patients may not have mentioned the war when they were admitted, even though it had exacerbated their fragile state. In many cases across the North, deranged soldiers were sent directly to the federal Hospital for the Insane in Washington, D.C. Most likely, though, families tended their depressed or frenzied loved ones at home. Surely thousands of other Ohioans, urban and rural, wealthy and poor, highly or less educated, suffered from the same stressors as the asylum patients but may have had milder symptoms or felt shame or fear of ostracism and remained at home. We would have more context for Ohio’s Civil War records if there were comparable studies of asylum rolls in the adjoining states of the North, the Northeast, and the southern states. As it is, the records of the Columbus, Cleveland, Dayton, and Cincinnati asylums reveal a great deal, but they cannot tell the whole story.47

1 Gerald N. Grob laid the foundation for the contem- is a groundbreaking study of the cases of 291 Civil War porary study of nineteenth-century America’s insane veterans who were committed to the Indiana Hospital asylums with The State and the Mentally Ill: A History for the Insane. Jeffrey W. McClurken’sTake Care of the of Worcester State Hospital in Massachusetts, 1830–1920 Living: Reconstructing Confederate Veteran Families in (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966); Virginia (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Mental Institutions in America: Social Policy to 1875 2009) includes a detailed and thoughtful chapter on (New York: Free Press, 1973); and The Mad among Us: A Confederate veterans and their family members who History of the Care of America’s Mentally Ill (Cambridge, were patients at Virginia’s Western Lunatic Asylum. MA: Harvard University Press, 1994). See also Nancy Brian Matthew Jordan writes movingly of the mental Tomes, A Generous Confidence: Thomas Story Kirkbride as well as physical toll that the war took on veterans in and the Art of Asylum-Keeping, 1840–1883 (Cambridge: Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Cambridge University Press, 1984), reissued by the Civil War (New York: Liveright, 2014). same publisher in 1994 as The Art of Asylum-Keeping: Thomas Story Kirkbride and the Origins of American 2 Phillip Shaw Paludan, A People’s Contest: The Union and Psychiatry; Alice Davis Wood, Dr. Francis T. Stribling and Civil War, 1861–1865 (Lawrence: University Press of Moral Medicine: Curing the Insane at Virginia’s Western Kansas, 1988), 334; David Rothman, The Discovery of State Hospital: 1836–1874 (Waynesboro, VA: Galileo the Asylum: Social Order and Disorder in the New Republic Giannini Publishing, 2004). Eric T. Dean Jr.’s Shook (Boston: Transaction, 1971), 115. over Hell: Post-Traumatic Stress, Vietnam, and the Civil People’s Contest, War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997) 3 Paludan, 335, 336, 327, 335.

62 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY ANN CLYMER BIGELOW

4 Fifth Annual Report of the Board of Directors and Officers Central Ohio asylum annual reports, 1852–54, Ohio of Longview Asylum, Annual Reports for 1864 Made to the History Connection; Dr. Gundry’s great-granddaughter Fifty-Sixth General Assembly of Ohio, 2:834; Eighth Annual Parker Gundry Trostel, in conversation with author Report of Southern Asylum, Annual Reports Made to the November 11, 2015; Otto Juettner, Daniel Drake and His Governor of the State of Ohio for the Year 1862, 2:138–39; Followers (Cincinnati: Harvey, 1909), 424. Longview State Hospital Case History of Male Patients, March 1863–November 29, 1870; Columbus State 11 Barbara Burrier, Columbus Prescription Book, 196, Hospital Admission Records, 1835–68; Columbus State 189; Bronson Selar, John Mozier, Wm. Crispin, and Hospital Patients’ Prescription Book, 1863–67; Cleveland Henry Miller, all in Dayton State Hospital Register, State Hospital Record of Male and Female Patients, 18, 20; Samuel B. Woodward, M.D., “Observations on 1855–1902; Dayton State Hospital Register of Male and the Medical Treatment of Insanity,” American Journal of Female Patients, 1855–1902; all in state hospital records Insanity 7 (1850–51): 11, 16. found in Ohio History Connection, Columbus. 12 Elijah Robb, Columbus Prescription Book, 447. 5 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees and Officers of the Central Ohio Lunatic Asylum, to the Governor of 13 Circleville Watchman, June 13, 27, 1862. Ohio (Columbus: Richard Nevins, Statesman Steam 14 “Appendix to House Journal, Report of Select Committee Press, 1864), 19–20; Twentieth Annual Report of the on Military Arrests,” Journal of the House of Representatives Superintendent of the N.Y. State Lunatic Asylum for the Year of the State of Ohio 59 (1863): 101, 100; John W. Kees, Ending November 30th, 1862, 16–17, National Library Columbus Admission Records, 3; History of Franklin and of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Washington, Pickaway Counties (N.p.: Williams Bros., 1880), 166–67. D.C.; The Forty-First Annual Report of the Officers of the Retreat for the Insane At Hartford, Conn., April, 1865, 15 “Report of Major George H. Rader, Fifth Ohio Cavalry, 14–15, cited in Grob, Mental Institutions in America, 162. of operations Jan. 28–Mar. 24, 1865,” The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the 6 Reid Mitchell, “The Northern Soldier and His Union and Confederate Armies, 128 vols. (Washington, Community,” in Toward a Social History of The American D.C.: GPO, 1880–1901), ser. 1, vol. 47, 1:900–901; Civil War, ed. Maris A. Vinovskis (Cambridge: Cambridge James H. Wall, Columbus Prescription Book, 446; University Press, 1990), 83; LeeAnn Whites, The Civil Woodward, “Observations,” 8. War as a Crisis in Gender: Augusta, Georgia, 1860–1890 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), 35. 16 William H. Hunter, Longview State Hospital, 56; Reid Mitchell, The Vacant Chair: The Northern Soldier Leaves 7 Sean A. Scott, A Visitation of God: Northern Civilians Home (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), Interpret the Civil War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 10; Joan E. Cashin, “Deserters, Civilians, and Draft 2011), 36, 46, 72; Peter J. Parish, “From Necessary Evil Resistance in the North,” in The War Was You and Me: to National Blessing: The Northern Protestant Clergy Civilians in the American Civil War, ed. Joan E. Cashin Interpret the Civil War,” in An Uncommon Time: The (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 271. Civil War and The Northern Home Front, eds. Paul A. Cimbala and Randall M. Miller (New York: Fordham 17 Dean, Shook over Hell, 134. University Press, 2002), 66. 18 Jaberry Smith, Longview State Hospital, 42. Reid 8 Grob, Mental Institutions in America, 154; McClurken, Mitchell comments that rebel conscripts had a reputation Take Care of the Living, 131. for deserting in Civil War Soldiers: Their Expectations and Their Experiences (New York: Viking, 1988), 170. 9 Central Ohio Asylum Annual Report, 1860; Annual Report of the Board of Trustees and Officers of the Northern 19 Obed Dennis, Longview State Hospital, 5. Ohio Lunatic Asylum to the Governor of the State of Ohio (Columbus: 1860–65); Annual Report of the Board 20 James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men of Trustees and Officers of the Southern Ohio Lunatic Fought in the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Asylum to the Governor of Ohio (Columbus: 1860–65); Press, 1997), 75; New Lexington Weekly Democratic Longview Annual Report, 1860–65; all reports found Herald, Jan. 30, 1868; A. A. Graham, History of Fairfield in Ohio History Connection. “Report on Insanity,” and Perry Counties, Ohio (Chicago: W. H. Beers & Co., The Transactions of the American Medical Association 19 1883), 113–15, 393; Ninth U.S. Census, 1870. (1868): 180; Eighth U.S. Census, 1860, Population Schedule (all counties, Ohio), National Archives and 21 Andrew J. Dusenbury, Columbus Prescription Book, 441, Records Administration, Washington, D.C. 242. McPherson writes that “combat stress reaction became more common in the last year of the Civil War than in the 10 “Dr. Ralph Hills. Tribute by Hon. T. W. Powell,” preceding three years” in For Cause and Comrades, 164. Delaware Gazette (Delaware, OH), Oct. 16, 1879;

SUMMER 2017 63 INSANITY IN CIVIL WAR OHIO

22 Dean, Shook over Hell, 49. Dean suggests that “sun- atmosphere of intense partisanship…inevitably…saw stroke,” another type of stress disorder in the Civil War, themselves inhabiting a hostile environment, a scene of amounted to today’s “battle fatigue” (131). Two soldiers conflict that at times resembled the battlefront of the admitted at Columbus with a diagnosis of “sunstroke” South” (135–36). were William H. McKibben and Michael Lavelle, both in Columbus Prescription Book, 275, 381. 38 George W. Campbell, Longview State Hospital, 68; Horwitz, Longest Raid, 106–7. 23 T. Harry Williams and Stephen E. Ambrose, “The 23rd Ohio,” Civil War Times, October 1997, available online at 39 Ginette Aley, “Inescapable Realities: Rural Midwestern http://www.historynet.com/american-civil-war-the-23rd- Women and Families during the Civil War,” in Union ohio-volunteer-infantry-regiment.htm; McPherson, For Heartland: The Midwestern Home Front during the Cause and Comrades, 156; Samuel McElroy, Cleveland Civil War, eds. Ginette Aley and Joseph L. Anderson State Hospital, No. 1084; Tenth U.S. Census, 1880; (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2013), 126, Twelfth U.S. Census, 1900. 141; Washington County Infirmary Registers, 1836–1920, Ohio History Connection. Fourteen other county home 24 Andrew Simpson, Columbus Admission Records, 343; record books list their destitute residents or aid applicants Central Ohio Asylum Annual Report, 1862, 20. by name but do not give the reason for their need.

25 Dion Birney, Longview State Hospital, 6; Betty 40 Sarah Baker, Columbus Prescription Book, 176; Eighth Fladeland, “Birney, James Gillespie,” Edward G. U.S. Census, 1860; Official Roster of the Soldiers of the Longacre, “Birney, William,” A. Wilson Greene, “Birney, State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865, David Bell,” all in American National Biography, 24 vols. 12 vols. (Cincinnati: Ohio Valley Press, 1889), 9:5; (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 2:816–18, Whitelaw Reid, Ohio in the War: Her Statesmen, Her 819–20, 816; D. Laurence Rogers, Apostles of Equality: Generals, and Soldiers, 2 vols. (Cincinnati: Moore, The Birneys, the Republicans, and the Civil War (East Wilstach, & Baldwin, 1868), 1:160–64. Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2011), 197. 41 Sarah Jane Hattery, Columbus Prescription Book, 44; 26 Rogers, Apostles of Equality, 206; McPherson, For Cause Eighth U.S. Census, 1860. and Comrades, 164; Birney, Longview State Hospital. 42 Lucinda Adams, Columbus Admission Records, 293; 27 Birney, Longview State Hospital; Whites, Civil War as a Hester Ann McKnight, Columbus Prescription Book, 115; Crisis in Gender, 3. Catharine Boehler, Columbus Admission Records, 338.

28 William H. H. Johnson, Longview State Hospital, 77. 43 Drew Gilpin Faust, Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War (New York: 29 John Henrie, Longview State Hospital, 29. Vintage, 1997), 234, 235; Nina Silber, Daughters of the Union: Northern Women Fight the Civil War (Cambridge, 30 Bell Irvin Wiley, The Life of Billy Yank: The Common MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 72, 100, 21, talks of Soldier of the Union (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State northern women’s sense of “economic victimization.” Aley, University Press, 1952), 294. “Inescapable Realities,” 126, says these women’s anxiety and fear stemmed from the threat to their family’s preservation. 31 J. Matthew Gallman, The North Fights the Civil War: The Home Front (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1994), 166. 44 Mary Ann McDonald, Columbus Admission Records, 148; Mary Ann McDonald, Columbus Prescription 32 Uriah McMachen, Columbus Prescription Book, 345. Book, 442; Eric Foner, “Ohio and the World: The Civil War Era,” in Ohio and the World, 1758–2053: Essays 33 Henry Hensel, Columbus Prescription Book, 369. toward a New History of Ohio, eds. Geoffrey Parker, Richard Sisson, and William Russell Coil (Columbus: 34 James B. Mason and Jacob Deal, both in Longview State Ohio State University Press, 2005), 80; Official Roster, Hospital, 32, 33. 3:453; Ninth U.S. Census, 1870. 35 Amos DeHaven and Fred Fetzer, both in Columbus 45 Lancaster Gazette, October 8, 1863; H. O. Harden, Admission Records, 274, 351; Lester V. Horwitz, The History of the 90th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the War Longest Raid of the Civil War (Cincinnati: Farmcourt, 2001). of the Great Rebellion in the United States, 1861–1865 36 Jesse Brokaw, Columbus Prescription Book, 211; (Stoutsville, OH: Press of Fairfield–Pickaway News, Horwitz, Longest Raid, 294–96. 1902), 98; Ellen Strayer, Columbus Prescription Book, 180; Eighth U.S. Census, 1860. 37 Christian Miller and Lydia M. Shaw, both in Columbus Admission Records, 43; Lydia M. Shaw, Columbus 46 Daniel S. Disher, Dayton State Hospital, 25; Eighth U.S. Official Roster Prescription Book, 115; Horwitz, Longest Raid, 267–76. Census, 1860; , 5:233. In Daughters of the Union: Northern Women Fight the 47 Eugene C. Murdock, One Million Men: The Civil War Civil War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Draft in the North (Madison: State Historical Society of 2005), Nina Silber writes that women who lived in “an Wisconsin, 1971), 178–79; Dean, Shook over Hell, 116.

64 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Collection Essay Preserving the Photography of the Braun Sisters

isters Annette and E. Lucy Braun were scientists who lived and worked in Cincinnati, Ohio during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Annette was born on August 28, 1884, and her sister Emma Lucy was born on SApril 19, 1889. During a time when few women in the United States pursued careers in higher education, each of the Braun sisters became respected scholars and researchers in her field. Annette, an entomologist, became the first woman to earn her PhD from the University of Cincinnati, in 1911. E. Lucy became the second woman to earn a PhD from the same university in 1914, when she graduated with a degree in botany.1 Annette and E. Lucy made significant scientific contributions in their fields and were active voices for land preservation in both the Ohio region and throughout the United States. Working at the forefront of the land conservation movement in the United States, the Braun sisters were instrumental in preserving The Richard and Lucile Durrell Edge of Appalachia Preserve System in Adams County, Ohio, and valiantly fought to protect land from mining and lumbering interests in Kentucky through the “Save Kentucky’s Primeval Forest League.”2 In 1996, the Annette and E. Lucy Braun Papers were transferred from the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History to Cincinnati Museum Center’s Cincinnati History Library and Archives (CHLA). The collection consists of the sisters’ professional correspondence, research writing, notebooks (MSS 1064), and an extensive photograph collection (SC 330). The heart of the photograph collection consists of fourteen photo albums that document their research travels across the United States, beginning in 1909. Many of the images in the volumes have been reproduced in books about the sisters and their work, specifically books and journal articles written by E. Lucy. The Braun sisters have recently received attention from a variety of regional parties, including Voyageur Media Group and Meg Hanrahan Media, which are producing the documentary Lucy Braun: Pioneer Ecologist. Cincinnati Museum Center’s CHLA is collaborating with Voyageur and Meg Hanrahan to provide archival photographs from the Braun sisters’ collection for use in the documentary. This year also marks the hundredth anniversary of the Cincinnati Wildflower Preservation Society, which E. Lucy led at the organization’s founding.3

SUMMER 2017 65 PRESERVING THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF THE BRAUN SISTERS

To provide access to the Annette and E. Lucy Braun Photograph Collection we first conducted a visual assessment. We quickly realized that the photo albums were too fragile to view safely; many of the photographs had become loose due to dried out adhesive, and the pages would not lay flat. We decided that the best course of action was to disbind only the albums that were bound with string or metal posts; sewn volumes were left intact. Each page was given a number, written in brackets, and placed into individual archival folders and boxes that have passed the Photographic Activity Test (PAT).3

Archival folders with individual album pages. CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER

The next step was to do a condition assessment of each page, noting the images that needed conservation. We then created a catalog record of each page, transcribing caption information and notating which photographs include people. The result is a fully described record of each page that will include the total number of photographs in the collection and the condition of each page. In addition to creating catalog records for inclusion to our online library catalog, all of this detailed information is being compiled so we can estimate how many hours of post-processing work of digitally cropping the individual photographs will be needed. Finally, we perform basic stabilization of individual photographs by re-adhering them to the page using neutral pH PVA (Polyvinyl Acetate).

66 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY JAMES J. DAMICO

Page from “The Mineral Springs Region of Adams County, Ohio.” CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER

The in-depth work of condition assessments and cataloging is being done prior to digitizing the albums at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, a project generously funded through the Anness Family Charitable Fund.4 The following images show volume 2 of “The Mineral Springs Region of Adams County, Ohio, c. 1911–1927,” before we removed the string binding and the condition of photographs.5

“The Mineral Springs Region of Adams County, Ohio” photo album. CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER

SUMMER 2017 67 PRESERVING THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF THE BRAUN SISTERS

Handwritten/hand-drawn title page of “The Mineral Springs Region of Adams County, Ohio.” CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER

Photographs in “The Mineral Springs Region of Adams County, Ohio,” loose because the adhesive has dried out. CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER

Mineral Springs, in Adams County, is about two hours east of Cincinnati and was once a destination for people with the economic means to stay there at the Mineral Springs Health Resort or the Hotel Norfolk. The latter was the only remaining structure from the original resort complex when the Braun sisters began doing fieldwork in 1924.6 Preservation and conservation of areas such as the Lynn Fork of Leatherwood Forest in Kentucky and the prairies of Adams County were foremost in the minds of Lucy Braun and her colleagues. As early as 1917, Braun joined the Ecological

68 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY JAMES J. DAMICO

Society of America’s Committee for the Preservation of Natural Conditions. By the 1933 annual meeting of the Ohio Academy of Science, the society had outlined plans to preserve natural areas, including “Adams County dry prairies.”7 Volume 2 of the Brauns’ photo album collection, “The Mineral Springs Region of Adams County, Ohio,” is significant because it is the second earliest photographic document the sisters created. According to Meyn and Buck in the series On the Edge: a History of the Richard and Lucile Durrell Edge of Appalachia Preserve System, Adams County, Ohio, while E. Lucy’s doctoral dissertation focused on the ecology of the Cincinnati region, she and Annette most likely visited the Mineral Springs area first with their parents, George Frederick, a principal in the Cincinnati school system, and Emma Maria (Wright), a retired schoolteacher.8 The two earliest photographs in the album, snapshots taken on the road to Mineral Springs, dated to 1911 and 1912, offer a brief view of a trip into nature with what were most likely their very encouraging parents. However, the bulk of the album dates from 1925 to 1928, which aligns with Lucy’s early fieldwork in Adams County, beginning in 1924, and concludes with her 1928 publication, The Vegetation of the Mineral Springs Region of Adams County, Ohio. The photo album offers in fine detail, through handwritten captions and careful arrangement of photographs, a visual record, both personal and scientific, of early travels to Lynx Prairie, Buzzard Roost, Cedar Falls, and Brush Creek.9

Unidentified group, believed to be students from the University of Cincinnati on a field trip to Cedar Falls (c. 1926), “The Mineral Springs Region of Adams County, Ohio.” CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER

SUMMER 2017 69 PRESERVING THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF THE BRAUN SISTERS

The goal of preserving and describing the Annette and E. Lucy Braun Photograph Collection is to provide access, through digital surrogates of the album pages, to the photo documentary record the Braun sisters so meticulously and lovingly photographed, compiled, and arranged. This access would not be possible without the collaborative partnership between Cincinnati Museum Center, Voyageur Media Group, and the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County’s Digital Services Department. The project is an excellent example of how to maximize limited financial and human resources while embarking on a large-scale digitization project. Cincinnati Museum Center would like to thank the Anness Family Charitable Fund for its support and generous contribution to preserve and make accessible through digitization the rich visual record that the Braun sisters created through their long and remarkable careers. James J. DaMico Curator of Audio-Visual Collections Cincinnati Museum Center

1 Annette and E. Lucy Braun Papers, 1838–1972, Mss 1064, Cincinnati Museum Center. Finding aid at the Cincinnati History Library and Archives. http://library.cincymuseum.org/archives/mss1000- 1099/Mss1064-register.pdf

2 Ibid.

3 Christine Hadley, newsletter for the Cincinnati Wild Flower Preservation Society, January-April 2017. http://www.cincywildflower.org/main/page_newsletter.html

3 “Photographic Activity Test (PAT),” Image Permanence Institute Web site, accessed February 28, 2017, https://www.imagepermanenceinstitute.org/testing/pat.

4 Meg Hanrahan Media and Voyageur Media Group, “Lucy Braun.”

5 In Susan L. Meyn and Anita Buck, On the Edge: A history of the Richard & Lucille Durrell Edge of Appalachia Preserve System, Adams County, Ohio (Cincinnati: Cincinnati Museum Center, 2012), this volume is referred to as number 7 from Box A, file 24. The volume number given above reflects a new arrangement of the Annette and E. Lucy Braun Photograph Collection, SC#330.

6 Susan L. Meyn and Anita Buck, On the Edge: A History of the Richard & Lucille Durrell Edge of Appalachia Preserve System, Adams County, Ohio (Cincinnati: Cincinnati Museum Center, 2012), 11.

7 Ibid., 15.

8 Ibid., 10.

9 Annette and E. Lucy Braun Photograph Collection, 1850-1960, SC #330, Series 1, Volume 2. Cincinnati Museum Center.

70 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY An Englishman in a Kentucky Regiment The Civil War Letters of Robert Winn

But let us look at the nature of the war going on - is slavery likely to be interfered with? If so by which party, and how? Would a restoration of the union at the present time not help to strengthen slavery and save it from destruction? Would a long protracted war not be the means of its destruction?1

he letters of Robert Fletcher Winn form part of the Winn-Cook Family Papers held at the Filson Historical Society. Between 1861 and 1865, millions of Americans like Winn marched off to war with the expectation Tthat they could maintain contact with their home communities via the mail. From his first days in training camp in Kentucky to his last campaign in North Carolina, Winn maintained a steady stream of correspondence with his friends and family. Winn’s surviving letters from the war number 175, a considerable quantity for any one soldier. Together they provide a remarkable portrait of the experiences and musings of a frontline participant in America’s most destructive war. The collection of Winn’s letters not only offers insight into the worldview of an ordinary American living in extraordinary times but also reveals much about the common soldier’s experience of writing and fighting his way through America’s greatest conflict.

Letter from Robert Winn to his sister, Martha Winn, dated October 21, 1864. Includes drawing of a woodcock, a horned pheasant, and an unnamed soldier. FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY

SUMMER 2017 71 AN ENGLISHMAN IN A KENTUCKY REGIMENT

Born June 12, 1837, in Gateshead, England, Robert Fletcher Winn was the eldest child of John Winn and Mary Fletcher. The couple had twelve children, the last born after the family emigrated from England and settled in Hancock County, Kentucky. The local coal mining industry provided employment for the large family. The Winns settled in a slave state where, on the eve of the Civil War, one in five Kentuckians—some 225,000 men, women, and children—was owned by another.2 Though Winn, like many white Kentuckians, had sympathies for the rebellion, his loyalty to the Union proved stronger. Along with thousands of Kentuckians, he answered the call to arms during the fall of 1861. He enlisted as a private in Company E of the 3rd Kentucky Cavalry Regiment, an outfit organized in December 1861 in Calhoun and McLean counties. A fellow regimental comrade, Matthew Cook, later married Robert’s sister Martha, and thus the two Union men, who served as brothers-in-arms during the war, became brothers-in-law afterward. The 3rd Kentucky Cavalry saw action in several notable engagements. Winn witnessed the Battle of Shiloh in 1862, the drive toward Atlanta and the March to the Sea in 1864, and William Tecumseh Sherman’s campaign in the Carolinas in 1865.3 Like their predecessors in previous conflicts, Civil War soldiers went for months and even years without seeing loved ones. Unlike their predecessors, however, most Civil War soldiers were literate and had access to a reliable national mail system. Deployment to faraway battlefronts fueled an even greater demand for both letters and the means to deliver them. Soldiers spent hours daily writing letters. This was one of the chief forms of leisure and helped sustain men’s morale as they endured long stretches of boredom, punctuated by moments of terrify- ing combat. The hardships of active campaigning and the horrors of battle tested their resolve, while the periods of inactivity made them all the more eager for letters that provided amusement and helped sustain their will to fight. Winn, like many Civil War soldiers, derived great joy from the mail and regularly pressed his correspondents to write often. During the campaign to capture Atlanta in the summer of 1864, while he was convalescing at Ringgold, Georgia, Winn wrote in a May 29 letter to his sister Martha, “I expect reading matter to be scarce in Kingston—so you had better, if you can spare the time, write some more of your good old fashioned letters.” Winn claimed to write many “good old fashioned letters” throughout the war, at a rate of “three or four letters per week.”4 Winn served as assistant to the regimental surgeon and spent most of the war in this noncombat position. His letters often discuss medical care and diseases. Indeed, sickness proved deadlier than combat. For every soldier killed in battle, two fell to disease. The 3rd Kentucky Cavalry participated in some of the worst fighting of the war. and Winn saw firsthand the horrors of war. He wrote about the burning towns, cavalry charges, and the deplorable conditions that befell the dead and wounded after battle.

72 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BAO BUI

Letter from Robert Winn to Martha Winn, dated October 26, 1864. Includes drawing of the “Episcopal Church in Marietta Ga. Used as an Hospital by the 3rd Cav. Div.” FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Winn was well educated and religious. His letters articulate his views on politics, theology, and philosophy, with occasional references to popular literature. In one letter written on September 5, 1865, Winn cites “a piece of poetry from Household Words by Charles Dickens.” Winn also had talent as a visual artist, embellishing his letters with illustrations of scenes from army life.5

SUMMER 2017 73 AN ENGLISHMAN IN A KENTUCKY REGIMENT

Letter from Robert Winn to Martha Winn, dated October 16, 1864. Includes drawings of various wildlife and human subjects such as “Dinah…our Washerwoman.” FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY

As much as Winn sought to keep his family and friends at home informed of his life in the service, he eagerly sought news of developments on the home front as well as reliable reports on national affairs, especially regarding the progress of the war. “We seldom see a paper now, and hear very conflicting rumors, so when you write you would confer a great favor by giving us the history of events for the past six weeks,” wrote Winn from Tennessee on March 25, 1862.

74 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BAO BUI

Soldiers had to sort out the facts from the flotsam of gossip, rumors, and wild speculation that percolated through the regimental camps. A letter Winn wrote on July 12, 1862 reveals much about the nature of news-sharing among the rank and file: “Food for thought, the news prevalent in camps generally containing 99 per cent of falsehood, for instance Richmond has been taken on an average twice a week for a month past. Now the negroes are to be liberated.” Winn’s letters suggest that his sister regularly sent him both letters and newspapers to feed his insatiable curiosity. As desirous as he was for news of home and the great affairs of the nation, he developed a healthy sense of skepticism of the wild rumors masquerading as facts. On November 22, 1861 he wrote that having done “an examination of the reports in the papers, it is evident the reporters know little more of what they report than I do of the Emperor of China.… I don’t believe a word of it.”6 Winn occasionally lapsed and proved himself just as prone to hopeful fantasy as most soldiers. On April 22, 1862, shortly after Union forces earned a hard- won victory at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee, Winn wrote, “But we hope that relief will come…in the shape of a permanent peace before the midsummer’s sun sickens and kills the half of each. Circumstances within our observation lead us to believe this probable, unless seriously defeated.” Whatever its dangers or hardships, the prospect of battle at least offered relief from the stifling boredom of camp life, a frequent topic in soldiers’ writings. Winn, like his peers, complained that the monotonous routines of the regimental camp afforded him sparse material to write about. “I resume my pen as my only resource to keep ennui off,” he wrote from Bowling Green on November 13, 1863, “the Paper having been disposed of—and all the books in Camp read that I care to read—but have no news—and I can not but be believed, when I say that I have no new Ideas to communicate.”7 Winn had to endure frequent disruptions in the mail service. Soldiers’ letters regularly noted the vulnerability of communication links to enemy attack. Winn noted as much when he wrote from Alabama on July 17, 1862, “That is the way the Confed’s want to whip us, by drawing us into the interior and cutting off sup- plies, thus compelling strong guards every where over an immense territory thus weakening the main body of the army to make it an easy prey.” Regardless of the difficulties in sending and receiving mail, most soldiers persisted in their attempts to maintain steady links with home. Correspondents encouraged each other to write more letters so as to beat the odds of mail ending up lost or delayed. Another solution involved numbering letters, allowing correspondents to recognize a break in the sequences of letters. A May 29, 1864, letter Winn wrote to Martha while he recovered at a convalescent camp in Georgia shows the method at work: “Circumstances beyond my control have separated me from the Regt. for the past three weeks (as I guess my No. 56 will

SUMMER 2017 75 AN ENGLISHMAN IN A KENTUCKY REGIMENT

have explained). I have been deprived of any of the letters from home &c. that I believe are overdue (your 1st recd. was No. 38 recd. 5th May) and although my health is somewhat better—yet there is no certainty as to when I will get to the Regt.—and while at this place I have concluded almost that I will not get any letters.”8 Winn’s letters indicate Martha likewise proved an able and diligent corre- spondent. “Your letters dated and numbered as follows came to hand to day. viz; -No. 21, Aug 15; No. 26, Sept 14th; & No 27, Oct. 5th,” he notified her on October 28, 1862. Another letter showed the tracking system working as intended. “At last your No. 39 has come—38 being lost in the fog somewhere, and although it is not yet settled that our letters are carried to their destination at all,” wrote Winn on April 30, 1864, “I take my pen again to try the experiment.” Winn, like many other Union soldiers, acknowledged the hard hand of war

Tracking number of letter from Robert Winn to Martha Winn, dated April 3, 1863. FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

and the nature of slavery. A year after hostilities began Winn articulated rather well the rationale behind the South’s momentous decision to secede. “Surely if Slavery is Divine, and guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution,” he wrote on July 12, 1862, “the rebels were nearly if not quite justified by the nature of the case in dissolving the bond of profitless union.” In another letter, he wrote, “Hoping for the better though, yet I can’t see how the war can end without the destruction of Slavery.”9 Winn lived to see the Union restored. The last days of the war found Winn with Sherman’s army in North Carolina. By then federal troops had battled their way through the heart of the Confederacy, from the approaches to Atlanta to Durham, North Carolina. His hopes and prayers, like those of millions of other Americans, were finally answered when the last major Confederate army surrendered. His elation at having survived the war to see the hard-won Union victory was apparent in his writing. “Glad to get the good news in all your letters—Mother’s—Amelia’s—Bessie’s and Francis’ also Lt. Newton’s,” he wrote from Durham, North Carolina on April 22, 1865, “but fully as glad that I feel sure that the War is over at last.”

76 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BAO BUI

Envelope from Robert Winn letter to Martha Winn, dated December 6, 1863. Includes an illustration entitled “The Last Ditch,” in which a Confederate soldier despairs over the “Cap- ture of Richmond and Atlanta” as a snake wraps itself around his leg. FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY

After his regiment was mustered out of service, Winn returned to Hancock County, where the locals considered him a double outsider for being both English and Yankee. Some time after the war, the well-worn veteran married Amelia Winn, a woman nineteen years his senior who had several children. Winn went to work on his wife’s farm, became involved in his local church, farmed tobacco, and sold coal in Illinois. His postwar letters suggest he grew critical of President Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction policies and lamented the return of ex-rebels to elected office in the county.10 After the death of his first wife, he married Angela (nee Hoskins) Winn on August 28, 1892. Having been born on an isle in the Atlantic Ocean, he spent his last years not far from the Pacific shoreline. Robert Winn—Englishman, Kentuckian, and Civil War veteran—died on December 12, 1921, in Fresno, California, and was buried in Liberty (Veteran) Cemetery. Bao Bui

SUMMER 2017 77 AN ENGLISHMAN IN A KENTUCKY REGIMENT

1 Robert Fletcher Winn to his sister Martha, July 25, 1862, 7 For a discussion of why soldiers were likely to believe Winn-Cook Family Papers, Filson Historical Society. in rumors and the effects rumor had on soldiers’ combat motivation, see Jason Phillips, “The Grape Vine 2 For a history of slavery in Kentucky, see Marion B. Telegraph: Rumors and Confederate Persistence,” Journal Lucas, A History of Blacks in Kentucky: From Slavery to of Southern History 72 (November 2006): 753–788. Segregation, 1760–1891 (Frankfort: Kentucky Historical Society, 1992). 8 In another letter to Martha, dated July 8, 1864, and written from near Reseca, Georgia, Winn discussed “arrange- 3 Winn numbered among the hundreds of thousands of ments” for delivering letters to him at the front. foreign-born Americans who fought in the Civil War. See Ella Lonn, Foreigners in the Union Army and Navy 9 For a provocative argument on white soldiers’ attitudes (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1952) toward slavery, see Chandra Manning, What This Cruel and Foreigners in the Confederacy (Chapel Hill: University War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War (New of North Carolina Press, 1940) York: Knopf, 2007).

4 Robert Fletcher Winn to his sister Martha, February 13, Both Robert Winn and Abraham Lincoln pointed out 1862. that the Constitution protected slavery. Leonard L. Richards has argued that the slave-owning aristocracy 5 Edited by Charles Dickens, Household Words was an of the South dominated the federal government, and English weekly magazine that ran for most of the 1850s. ran it for their own profit ever since the founding of the Its title came from the famous “St. Crispin’s Day speech” United States. Secession, as Winn pointed out, made from Shakespeare’s Henry V. For Dickens’s attitude rational sense when the Union became “profitless.” See toward the American Civil War, see John O. Waller, Richards, The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern “Charles Dickens and the American Civil War,” Studies in Domination, 1780–1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Philology 57 (1960): 535–548. University Press, 2000).

6 One part of Winn’s March 29, 1862 letter to Martha 10 For examples, see Winn’s letters to Martha on April 6, reads, “I have not got the Tribune yet you spoke of.” 1866; April 26, 1866; November 10, 1866; and February 26, 1867.

78 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY PATRICK A. LEWIS Review Essay Bringing the Civil War Home Local History and the Ohio Valley

he Ohio Valley is American history’s great laboratory. Few other regions of the country give scholars as representative a sample (to borrow from our friends in the hard sciences) of the United States in all the nation’s Tmaddening and fascinating complexity. The experiments we can conduct in this region are necessarily more complex than those in homogeneous regions elsewhere but are ever more telling for when we apply historical lessons to our own time. Historical middle America, contrary to its popular contemporary image, is a region not of representative American homogeneity but rather of representative American diversity. Yet it is a hard region to study for the same reasons that make it attractive. As Stephen Rockenbach points out, the river that has united it has also come to divide it in many ways—though certainly this was not always the case. The region lies in numerous states, whose archives and records are scattered in as many state capitals and university libraries. And place matters. There is no monolithic Ohio Valley in the same way as there is—or is imagined to be—a Mississippi Delta or a Tidewater or a New England. The con- sistency comes in diversity. We recognize and embrace the idea that one district is farmed by the descendants of Scots-Irish frontiersmen, while over the nearby creek a community of Swiss immigrants or African Americans planted itself and eventually thrived. And we put that place together with a hundred others with the same patchwork of histories and identities in the Ohio Valley, and something draws it together, gives it a sense of cohesion despite itself. As we try to build regional narratives from this patchwork, it is hard to overstate Stephen I. Rockenbach. War upon Our Border: the need for good local histories such as Two Ohio Valley Communities Navigate the Civil War. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Stephen I. Rockenbach’s War upon Our Press, 2016. 256 pp. ISBN: 9780813939186 Border and William A. Penn’s Kentucky (cloth), $45.00.

SUMMER 2017 79 BRINGING THE CIVIL WAR HOME

Rebel Town. We rely on these sorts of books as we navigate the muddy banks and deceptive shoals of Ohio Valley historiography. Not only do they tell us about the communities they study, but their methods and interpretations show us what we need to keep an eye out for as we conduct research and draw conclusions elsewhere. And in those two phases of writing local history—research and interpretation— these books give their readers usable mod- els to apply elsewhere across the region. We will end up esteeming—and citing— these books for very different reasons as the historiography flows downstream. Rockenbach considers two Ohio Valley communities. Frankfort, Kentucky, and William A. Penn. Kentucky Rebel Town: The Corydon, Indiana, are the stages upon which Civil War Battles of Cynthiana and Har- rison County. Lexington: University Press of he frames an Edward L. Ayers In the Presence Kentucky, 2016. 400 pp. 35 b/w illus. 10 maps. of Mine Enemies–style (New York: Norton, ISBN: 9780813167718 (cloth), $45.00. 2003) comparative study. These two towns make interesting cases for how deep the tendrils of the Ohio Valley extend beyond the river’s bank. Neither sits on the Ohio; Corydon is set back on an inland creek while Frankfort is one of the larger port towns on the Kentucky River as it snakes its way northward. For all the pair can tell us, though, we never get the satisfaction of having the towns speak to one another. There are tanta- lizing hints of cross-border relationships between Corydon and Brandenburg, Kentucky, for example, but the sources seem not to allow a deep investigation there, and Frankfort has no comparable relationship. In form, Rockenbach gives us a whirlwind tour of these two communities, covering roughly a decade from the mid-1850s to the mid-1870s in each town in just under two hundred pages. Quotable archival collections and a backbone of newspaper commentary underlay the analysis of each, but the narrative moves very quickly, and some readers might have a tough time making themselves at home. As we blitz through fugitive slaves, secession movements, cavalry raids, and internal sedition in each place, the towns come together to make an important historiographical point about the slow drift from western frontier unity into sectionalized regionalism across the Ohio Valley. With only one community to consider and decades of research time to amass material, however, Penn’s has crafted an exhaustive look into Cynthiana. The narrative eagerly swings between political divisions, subversion investigations, and

80 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY PATRICK A. LEWIS detailed work establishing the precise locations of camps, blockhouses, and bat- tlefields. There is a volume of research in these copious notes that should make all historians jealous. That having been said, the drive to include as much of this treasure trove as possible sometimes leads to a table of contents with over- lapping themes and occasional (if interesting) non sequiturs. The book, which started life as a paperback history of the two John Hunt Morgan–centric battles of Cynthiana in 1862 and 1864, sometimes reads like an expanded and engaging tour through Penn’s deep research files. These two books read the way they do because they have different origin stories and different purposes. Rockenbach’s began life as a 2005 dissertation at the University of Cincinnati. The imprint of that history department is strong. The cohort of Christopher Phillips graduate students of which Rockenbach was a part has been unusually productive, populating library shelves with a number of important studies that hammer home the theme of antebellum white regional unity fractured into postwar sectionalism by the divisive civil and political conflict. Rockenbach’s book stands up admirably alongside those of his colleagues, though his might get less attention for having the misfortune to appear in the same year as Phillips’s own definitive regional study, The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War and the Remaking of the American Middle Border (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). When Penn looked to expand and revise his original publication beyond the actual battles in the streets to the metaphorical battles over the tangled political loyalties in Harrison County, he found a much richer historiographical context with which to frame his expanded research. Between Penn’s initial publication and his revision had come the Cincinnati school and other critical regional works from historians including Anne Marshall and Aaron Astor. And on the strength of that background, Penn has the freedom to focus on the depth of his archival digging while still producing a volume that addresses all of the important current issues in the field: divided families, civil liberties, irregular warfare, reunion and reconciliation. Speaking of the latter, while the title seems to be bait for the Rebel- sympathizing bookstore browser, it is principally through the depth of his local understanding that Penn has been able to counter the contemporary assertion that Harrison was a Rebel stronghold and deliver a nuanced portrait of a majority-but- not-entirely-Rebel county that is driven by strong personalities on all sides. These books represent two critical threads in local history writing in the Ohio Valley or anywhere. While Rockenbach is in his stride when framing and advancing his thesis of degenerating regional unity amid the strain of the war, Penn introduces his readers to fascinating characters and the intimate details of small-town strife. Both books will remain popular and quotable for Ohio Valley historians for years to come, but for very different reasons. Rockenbach illustrates a region-wide thesis that should frame future studies of individuals and

SUMMER 2017 81 BRINGING THE CIVIL WAR HOME

communities. Penn plumbs the depths of what is possible archivally when one commits to detailed digging not just into the local and state archives but deep into the bowels of federal records, too. Rockenbach exceeds in telling, Penn in showing. From Rockenbach’s Frankfort and Corydon, we get a thesis-driven interpretation not just of those two communities but larger truths we can take with us on our downriver journey in the Ohio Valley. Penn’s Cynthiana is rich in detail for the local who wants to understand which picturesque covered bridge Morgan’s cavalrymen thundered over into rifle fire from unionist Kentuckians as well as the historian who can uncover a hidden gem of a research collection through copious notes. And in the reading and writing of history we need a measure of both. Patrick A. Lewis Kentucky Historical Society

82 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Review Essay Bluegrass Music Sounds and People in Motion

ill Monroe’s song “Heavy Traffic Ahead” is a glimpse of the working life of a musician in the mid-1940s, hinting at the kinds of work that filled the days and nights of culture workers in the still-forming country music Bindustry. There is loading up on the run, driving from state to state, playing in town after town—and returning to a home base; in Monroe’s case, Nashville, Tennessee, and weekend shows on the WSM radio station that were a mainstay of his career. In their recently released biographies of Curly Seckler and Bill Clifton, Penny Parsons and Bill C. Malone have added to this historical perspective, showing bluegrass as music on the move. One of the common threads running through Parson’s and Malone’s volumes is travel, mobility, and all kinds of movement—of people, media, sounds, and stories. They also push us to consider bluegrass as it has flourished in territories outside of its perceived “native” territory. Born John Sechler in 1919 to a family of German descent in Rowan County, North Carolina, billed with key bluegrass bands as “Curly Seckler,” known to prominent country music icons as their friend “Seck,” the figure Penny Parsons illustrates in her volume seems always on the move, with complex and troubling aspects in addition to his noted achievements. In his portrait of the man born William Augustus Marburg, billed for decades to country, folk, and bluegrass audiences as Bill Clifton, Malone reveals similar issues and some differing successes. Seckler’s forbears (who immigrated to North America in the 1730s) typify the diversity of immigrants to the Piedmont area of the Carolinas, a region central to the development of hillbilly and bluegrass music. Curly’s story quickly becomes similar to those of other early country music professionals; they sought work on radio, toured extensively, took recording opportunities when given the chance, barnstormed in schoolhouses and on the roofs of drive- Penny Parsons. Foggy Mountain Troubadour: The Life and Music of Curly Seckler. Urbana: in theaters. He is most remembered for his University of Illinois Press, 2016. 304 pp. 49 time as a Foggy Mountain Boy, singing tenor illus. ISBN: 9780252081590 (paper), $22.95.

SUMMER 2017 83 BLUEGRASS MUSIC

harmony to Lester Flatt and layering his mandolin rhythm chop behind Earl Scruggs’s banjo. Many will read this book to get more sidelong glances at Flatt and Scruggs through Seckler’s story—and perhaps to learn more about the fallout from the split between the iconic duo at the end of the 1960s. Curly’s rejoining Lester Flatt in the Nashville Grass in 1973 brought two important voices of the Foggy Mountain Boys sound back together; Parsons highlights this moment, saying that in this move “Flatt had reclaimed the torch for traditional bluegrass”; it also indicates the generational layering in bluegrass, with younger traditionalists like Kenny Ingram and Marty Stuart accompanying foundational figures like Flatt and Seckler (160). Indeed, one of the book’s greatest achievements is in highlighting Seckler’s prominence as a core part of what some dub the first generation of bluegrass. In addition to documentation of watershed moments, this volume is full of trivia. It is interesting to learn that, according to Gary Tullock, son of Flatt and Scruggs bassist Jake Tullock, “Lester would save the cardboard squares that were packaged with new dress shirts and write the set lists on them,” but it is unclear what role this detail plays in Seckler’s story (134). Herein lies one of the chief flaws of the volume—and, paradoxically, one of its key contributions. The thread of Parsons’s narration links to many stories but doesn’t use Seckler’s story as a spring- board to other narratives about bluegrass, early country music, and social and aesthetic changes after the second World War. The note about Lester’s shirt-package set lists joins a flood of other details in the pages of this book; while sometimes they seem unconnected to a larger narrative, these stories offer revealing glimpses into Seckler’s life and environment—and thus, as many will note, glimpses into the lives of his more famous bandmates. Thanks to Parsons’s thorough research, using both oral history and consultation of travel schedules, newspapers, and other sources, readers are treated to anecdotes about the early career of the McReynolds brothers, Charlie Monroe’s work as a bandleader, and the process of recording string-band music circa 1950—and much more (44–50, 88–89). Readers of this journal will notice one area of Seckler’s biography in particular: the two troubled years the man Seckler spent in Ohio, with then-wife Juanita (39–41). This episode leads to a question in the midst of these stories of mobility: who, in all this flurry of travel and activity, stays still? While Curly’s partners and children were contained by typical midcentury family structures, his biography shows some extreme cases of confinement. His later wife Mable suffered a fever that led to brain damage, incapacitating her to a great degree; Curly would arrange for her care for forty years before she ended her own life. Unable to care for his sons Ray and Monnie for a large part of their childhood, Seckler left them with his mother Carrie. Eliding Curly’s apparent neglect as a father, Parsons uses the passive voice to state that “a decision was made” in 1948 to place the boys in an orphanage; Ray remained there for eight years (60). Parsons includes these

84 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY LEE BIDGOOD and other striking aspects of Seckler’s personal life alongside her accolades related to his artistic work, but she follows a tradition of emphasizing heroic male figures in country music. While women played key roles in Seckler’s life and his musical development (his mother was very musical, we learn), they occupy marginal roles in Parsons’s narrative. Clifton had fewer connections to Ohio, but he had his own relationship issues as a result his involvement with music. Born into a very wealthy Maryland family in 1931, Bill was attracted to the working-class laborers at his family’s estate—and to the music that they tuned into on weekend evenings: the Wheeling Jamboree, the Old Dominion Barn Dance, for example (14). His sisters liked the music, but his parents did not approve of it. Bill acted out in a variety of ways in his youth, and he did not excel in high school—when kicked out of a private school, Bill was directed to a public one, but his father reportedly protested: “Marburgs don’t go to public schools” (27). Relations between Bill and his father would remain tense; Malone relates how, after starting his studies at the University of Virginia, Bill took jobs working in a diner and driving a cab, outraging his father (30). Malone’s narrative about Clifton ties it deftly to the larger issues of vernacular American music history, noting, for example, that Bill started exploring (and per- forming) the bluegrass style with a group of fellow college students who were all of non-working-class backgrounds. In 1950, this group prefigured the socioeconomic profile of the later folk-revival-fueled explosion of bluegrass in the 1960s and ’70s. As a student, Bill met and began to spend time with people who ranged from folk revival luminary Paul Clayton, with whom he performed as the “Clifton Brothers,” gaining his pseudonym, to A. P. Carter of Carter Family fame. A significant part of Bill’s charisma might lie in how he could connect people with such disparate backgrounds—serving, as Malone states, as an “elder statesman” for groups like the Country Gentlemen, who bridged many gaps—such as those dividing folk, country, urban, and rural music—in their recreations of bluegrass (62). Readers learn how Bill’s family connections and wealth would help him in hard situations, even as he resisted the privilege he had inherited. Clifton worked on radio, tried to make a name as a solo performer and songwriter, Bill C. Malone. Bill Clifton: American Bluegrass Ambassador to the World. Urbana: University and compiled and sold songbooks. In sketch- of Illinois Press, 2016. 184 pp. 35 illus. ing out all these endeavors, Malone portrays ISBN: 9780252082009 (paper), $19.95.

SUMMER 2017 85 BLUEGRASS MUSIC

Clifton as he negotiates among the postwar folk revival, the business of country music, and rising grassroots movement of bluegrass. Malone praises his subject for a principled stance maintained during a time when many in his situation were pursuing gain or fame; he writes that Clifton “did not try to sound like the Carters or any other hillbillies” in slavish imitation—and also asserts that, conversely, Clifton did not seek to align himself with the “urban folk-revival” in the vein of pop-folk groups like the Kingston Trio (55). In this vein, we can see Clifton as part of the generation that would follow Seckler, loving the music and the people who made it, revering it and finding his own way of making a living around these sounds and personalities. One effort that is his legacy in this regard is the 1961 Oak Leaf Park festival he organized in Luray, Virginia, which brought together Bill Monroe, Mac Wiseman, and other early bluegrass greats, prefigur- ing the kinds of events that promoter Carleton Haney would organize later in the 1960s, and the phenomenon of the bluegrass festival, which has proved one of the most effective ways to join people from different geographic, social, and aesthetic origins to participate in bluegrass music-making. Clifton soon stepped into another “statesman” role, as an unofficial ambassador for bluegrass outside the United States. Malone notes that Don Pierce of Starday Records, who paved the way for Clifton’s early international forays, pre- ceded him in this endeavor (71). Clifton’s work to present his own music, and to bring performers and their recordings throughout the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe are noted here as key steps in bringing bluegrass to the Continent. The appreciation Clifton has received from European bluegrass professionals indicates their reverence for him. It is notable that Germany-based record label Bear Family Records used its typical care in producing a box set of Clifton’s collected recordings, with a careful treatment of his life in the enclosed book by Dutch musician and promoter Rienk Janssen. While both of these volumes are the product of significant work, the difference in the backgrounds of these two authors is clear. Malone is a preeminent scholar of country music, and Parsons is a journalist breaking into the writing of book-length studies. Malone provides more interpretation and connection to scholarly discourse on American vernacular music history—history he has played a large role in articulating. Parsons has carried out meticulous research, and con- veys it effectively, but she does not link these facts as skillfully or weave them into larger discourses about American vernacular music. Malone’s book, especially in the notes, includes a number of calls for further research. I add one here: the importance of transportation to country music performers. One could almost summarize Curly Seckler’s whole career through automobiles: the four-seat Packard limousine Curly bought to tour in 1948; the truck he bought as part of a second career after leaving the Foggy Mountain Boys for good in 1962; the bus he shared with Lester Flatt and the Nashville Grass

86 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY LEE BIDGOOD and took to seek out faith healing for Lester in the late 1970s; the motor home he rented in the lean years following Flatt’s death, and many more. Likewise, the stories Malone uses to illustrate the mobile nature of Clifton’s life are similarly automobile-heavy: an early road trip to Mexico, a tour bus bought in the United Kingdom, and so forth. The role of the automobile and the culture of road life and travel are a key part of the history and present working life of bluegrass musicians and a worthy topic for more research, documentation, and interpretation. These musicians were indeed on the move for so much of their lives, bringing the music they loved to more and wider audiences. While these volumes provide different kinds of stories about their subjects, they both offer otherwise inacces- sible information about key periods and people in the development, professional- ization, and community-level rooting of this music that happened in the postwar period. We should all be grateful for the authors’ work in offering this information, contributing to the growing body of scholarly work on bluegrass music, and complementing these musicians’ passion for the music with their own. Lee Bidgood East Tennessee State University

SUMMER 2017 87 Book Reviews Dividing the Union Jesse Burgess Thomas and the Making of the Missouri Compromise Matthew W. Hall

hen the average student of early- Hall reminds the reader that the lines Wnineteenth-century America recalls between slave and free territory were not always the great political leaders of that era, Senator as clear in the Trans-Appalachian West as they Jesse B. Thomas of Illinois does not immedi- would appear in retrospect. He offers analysis ately spring to mind. That able—if unassum- not only of the well-known clause (Article VI) ing—legislator, best known for proposing the of the 1787 Northwest Ordinance that banned Missouri Compromise’s 36°30’ line of demar- further importation of slaves north of the Ohio cation between slave and free territory, is gener- River but of a similar restriction in Thomas ally mentioned in passing while titans such as Jefferson’s proposed 1784 ordinance, never Henry Clay occupy center stage. In Dividing adopted by Congress, that might have placed the Union, Mathew W. Hall has endeavored to slavery on the road to extinction throughout the give Thomas his due, utilizing the narrative of West. Hall emphasizes that prior to the 1830s his subject’s successive migrations and his prog- the antislavery language of both the Northwest ress up the political ladder as a lens through Ordinance and subsequent state constitutions which to understand the issue of slavery in the was most often honored in the breach, especially early republic. in those parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois set- Born in Maryland in 1775, Jesse Thomas tled by immigrants from the slaveholding south- moved with his brothers repeatedly westward ern states. Thomas, like many other prominent in search of an appropriate arena for their tal- Illinoisans at the time of statehood, in 1818, ents. They settled for a time in Pennsylvania, owned slaves whom he euphemistically identi- then Ohio, Kentucky, and eventually the fied as “indentured servants.” Indeed, even for Indiana Territory. Jesse initially became a pro- some time after settlement of the Missouri con- tégé of Governor William Henry Harrison, but troversy, the free status of the lands north of the the two had a falling out when Harrison sup- Ohio was by no means a sure thing. ported another candidate for the post of del- This becomes clear in Hall’s explanation egate to Congress in 1808. Thomas nonetheless of the 1818 Illinois constitutional convention, won election to the position and served a brief where Thomas served as the presiding officer. stint in Washington. There he found a new The delegates only narrowly rejected an arti- mentor in influential Georgia senator William cle openly allowing slavery, deciding instead Crawford. At the end of his term, in March to incorporate language that banned the intro- 1809, Thomas moved west yet again to take up duction of new slaves into Illinois, kept those the post of federal judge in the newly created already there enslaved under the fig leaf of Illinois Territory. a “contract” system, but freed the male and

88 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BOOK REVIEWS female children of bondsmen upon reaching adulthood. Thomas and his allies adopted language sufficiently ambiguous to be accepted by Congress while leaving the door open to explicitly proslavery revision by 1823. “Illinois,” says Hall, “thus bided its time, delaying for five years the attempt to establish slavery in the new state.… This contrasted dramatically with the more confrontational and incendiary approach taken by Missouri’s constitutional convention in 1820” (99). Selected to represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate, Thomas took his seat in the Fifteenth Congress just as the crisis brought on by Missouri’s petition to enter the Union as a slave state and New York representative James Tallmadge’s proposal to restrict slavery broke upon the national scene. For much of the second half of Dividing the Union, Thomas remains in the background while Hall relates the details Matthew W. Hall. Dividing the Union: Jesse Burgess of the congressional struggle to find a resolution Thomas and the Making of the Missouri Compromise. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2016. acceptable to all parties. Only when the action 288 pp. 27 illus. ISBN: 9780809334568 shifts to the upper house does Thomas again (cloth), $29.50. become a key figure. To garner northern support for House measures admitting Missouri as a slave as the Missouri crisis raged he kept an eye on state and Maine as a free state, he proposed the other critical issues, including public land policy, line of 36°30’ north latitude, above which slavery the financial Panic of 1819, and the question of was to be “forever prohibited.” He also chaired whether to censure Gen. Andrew Jackson for his the House-Senate conference committee charged conduct in the Seminole War. with crafting a uniform version of the legislation. On this latter issue, Thomas followed the lead This was a remarkable responsibility for a new- of his mentor, William H. Crawford, now treasury comer like Thomas. Hall attributes the choice to secretary. He thus linked his fortunes to a leader his recent experience in Illinois as well as “his per- destined to be remembered as an also-ran in the sonal qualities of leadership and reasoned com- presidential campaign of 1824 while making an promise” and “the fact that he had largely kept enemy of the country’s preeminent rising political his views to himself gave him flexibility and room figure. Though he served in the Senate until 1829, to maneuver” (180). Thomas never made a major the Missouri Compromise marked the high point speech on the Missouri controversy “yet achieved of Jesse Thomas’s political influence. Thomas left much more by working quietly and efficiently Illinois shortly after leaving Congress, spending his behind the scenes” (153). In modern parlance, remaining years in Ohio as an antislavery Whig. In he was a “workhorse,” not a “show horse”—even assessing his importance, Hall concludes that, for

SUMMER 2017 89 BOOK REVIEWS

more than three decades the Missouri Compromise continue to exist half-slave and half-free. With the permitted “the unfolding of America’s manifest repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854, the destiny.…It created a mechanism for Northerners sectional truce that Thomas had helped to engineer who did not like slavery but supported the idea of was at an end and Civil War was all but inevitable. westward expansion” (219). As long as Thomas’s Ken S. Mueller line across the West persisted, the Union could Ivy Tech Community College

Pembroke A Rural, Black Community on the Illinois Dunes Dave Baron

embroke, Illinois, is off the beaten track and engaging writing, however, to make the Palong the Illinois–Indiana state line about book not only interesting to popular audiences seventy-five miles south of Chicago and twenty but potentially useful for scholars of African miles east of Interstate 57. Nestled in the poor American history and contemporary life. farming country of the Illinois dunes, the town- Baron begins with the natural and early ship is home to just over two thousand people, human history of the region, including how the mostly African Americans who moved there to land came to be not particularly good for farm- escape urban life and establish a rural commu- ing, and thus inexpensive and accessible to those nity. In Pembroke: A Rural, Black Community on who could not afford or due to prejudice could the Illinois Dunes, Dave Baron brings the people not obtain property elsewhere. The modern his- of Pembroke to life and draws a picture of a com- tory of the African American community in munity that belies scholarly and popular stereo- Pembroke traces its roots to Joseph and Mary types about where and how African Americans Tetter, who arrived in Illinois from the South live, particularly low-income families. Baron is between 1861 and 1864. But the community a white lawyer from Chicago who spent time in grew as a result of what Baron calls the “second Pembroke as a teenager on a Catholic church migration.” As black families arrived in Chicago youth group mission. He includes reminis- during the Great Migration, they found living cences of that trip in the text and draws heavily conditions degraded by the lack of job opportu- from private interviews with people he met then nities and overcrowding stemming from severe and on a return visit. Early in the book, Baron restrictions on where they could live. Some fami- asserts that this is not intended to be a scholarly lies looked to the Illinois countryside as an escape analysis of the community, and it isn’t. There is from urban life and a chance to establish a home no overall thesis or argument beyond a tribute in more familiar rural surroundings. Two white to the perseverance of the residents. This sort real estate agents developed Pembroke by buying of lay community history can easily slide into up cheap rural parcels, subdividing them, and nostalgic romanticism and hagiography, and marketing them to black families desperate for at times Pembroke succumbs to that weakness. places to live. These developers often used loop- There is enough research and contextualization, holes in the law to avoid making infrastructure

90 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BOOK REVIEWS investments and sold the land on installment contracts that had few protections for the buy- ers. Baron strives to be evenhanded in his treatment of the story, but he makes clear that from the start the exploitative methods of develop- ing the community, combined with its distance from sources of employment and the poor qual- ity of the soil laid the groundwork for long-term economic problems for the residents. Having established how the community grew, Baron devotes chapters to different aspects of the community’s past and present. He starts by describing leading citizens and Pembroke’s political history. There is a chapter on Pembroke’s reputation for criminality ranging from prosti- tution and association with the Chicago mob during Prohibition and infamous kidnapping to more recent problems with illegal dumping. Baron’s dissection of these charges, and the reality of a poor community struggling against forces Dave Baron. Pembroke: A Rural, Black Community on the Illinois Dunes. Carbondale: Southern Illinois of disorder may remind some Ohio Valley History University Press, 2016. 248 pp. 18 illus. readers of Doug Boyd’s similar analysis of the ISBN: 9780809335022 (paper), $26.50. underworld in Frankfort, Kentucky, in Crawfish Bottom: Recovering a Lost Kentucky Community portraits, such as of longtime educator Lorenzo (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2011), Smith. In addition, he uncritically accepts first- reviewed in the Spring 2012 OVH. Baron also person testimony; oral historians and other eth- includes chapters on Pembroke’s religious life, nographers have demonstrated ways to interpret incorporating the prevalence of African American such material with an eye to mitigating nostal- Catholics; schools and the struggle for integration gia. Without an overarching thesis, the book’s and educational equality; persistence of economic chapters are discrete examinations of aspects troubles; and the debate over whether the com- of the community’s life in isolation from each munity should become part of a nature preserve. other. Baron opens each chapter with an anec- Baron’s lack of training as a scholar and the dote about his own experience in the commu- book’s amateur community history nature man- nity that in some way introduces the chapter’s ifest in some ways that detract from its poten- subject. These could have provided some con- tial. Baron has a deep affection for a commu- nectivity between the different parts of the nity that played an important role in his own story, but they are not integrated enough with intellectual and spiritual development. Because the chapters to do so. Moreover, while the of this, as much as he strives to be even-handed, racial politics of a short-term white mission to when he describes particular people he adopts a low-income black community are hinted at in an uncritical perspective that produces heroic these stories, the author never demonstrates the

SUMMER 2017 91 BOOK REVIEWS

critical distance necessary to examine the eth- the North, the mechanisms that shaped land ics of that situation. It is a missed opportunity. ownership, the nature of small-town black Two factors help lift the book above these Catholicism, rural school integration, and the shortcomings. First, it is very well written. The persistent link between poverty and politi- author’s skill with prose pulls the reader in and cal powerlessness. Most important, perhaps, creates an interest in the life of this isolated, Baron adds a different perspective on the Great little-known community. More important, Migration and its results, tracing people’s jour- the author has done a significant amount of neys out of the urban North and following their research not only on Pembroke but on the his- ongoing struggles to build a decent community tory of African American rural communities in through the twentieth century. Illinois. As a result, the book provides insight Tracy E. K’Meyer into pre-twentieth-century black settlement in University of Louisville

For Their Own Cause The 27th United States Colored Troops Kelly D. Mezurek

n recent years, a number of excellent stud- or political, evolved once the war began, and Iies of the U.S. Colored Troops (USCT) have Mezurek describes the circumstances where appeared, providing more and more analy- blacks in Ohio desired the right to participate sis and understanding of the role of African in the war but were often rebuffed. Only the American participation in the Civil War. To this changing politics of the war and need for addi- list of outstanding monographs, one must add tional manpower created a demand for more Kelly Mezurek’s For Their Own Cause, a sur- troops, with two USCT regiments recruited in vey of the wartime and postwar activities of the Ohio. The first, the 5th USCT, was organized 27th USCT. Although created late in the con- a few months before the 27th. Instrumental to flict, the unit was present at many of the major this process, as the author reveals, was the role events of the late months of the war. Organized of Ohio governor David Tod, who, although in January 1864, the 27th participated in the initially skeptical of African American regi- siege operations around Petersburg, the capture ments, supported the idea of black regiments of Wilmington, and surrender of Confederate to meet Ohio’s obligations after the institution armies in the East. Mezurek completes the his- of conscription. Creating a regiment was eas- tory of the 27th with a thorough account of the ier said than done, and Mezurek provides great soldiers’ lives as postwar civilians. details on the process, especially the screening Mezurek begins the book with an extensive and selection of the white officers who led each look at the status of African Americans in Ohio group of black soldiers at the regimental level. from the antebellum period through the first She also meticulously describes the various years of the Civil War. The expectations of free motivations of recruits who eventually enlisted African Americans, whether social, economic, in the 27th. Unlike most USCT units, recruited

92 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BOOK REVIEWS in the southern states and enlisted as a means to escape slavery, the 27th was made up of free men. Consequently, the men who enlisted had a wide range of motivations, from abolitionist idealism to the economic incentives of enlistment bounties. By the end of the war, more than five thousand African Americans from Ohio had enlisted in the Union army, some in USCT units organized in other states. Subsequent chapters explore the 27th’s participation in combat during the 1864 Overland campaign and conclusion of the war in early 1865. Although in federal service for a relatively brief time, the 27th participated in some of the most bloody and crucial battles in the last months of the conflict, including its role in the disastrous attack at the Crater during the siege of Petersburg (one of the best short discussions of the battle in recent memory) and participation in the capture of Fort Fisher near Wilmington, Kelly D. Mezurek. For Their Own Cause: The 27th United States Colored Troops. Kent, OH: Kent State North Carolina. The War Department then University Press, 2016. 368 pp. ISBN: 9781606352892 transferred the Ohio men to the interior of (cloth), $37.95. North Carolina in support of Gen. William T. Sherman’s campaign in the region, seeing the end of the war near Raleigh. Complementing they went home. There are plenty of works on the account of the 27th’s successes and failures USCT units in combat, but Mezurek’s poston the battlefield is a useful chapter that places war study is a welcome addition to the litera- the men of the regiment into the broader con- ture of the USCT’s history. The book has the text of the Civil War by comparing its daily life singularly important vantage point of what with that of the Union army in general, high- expectations free African Americans possessed lighting both the common elements of war when they returned home, as opposed to experienced by all soldiers as well as the unique USCT members who were former slaves. Her existence of African American troops in a largely discussion of how the payment of enlistment white army. This section assesses the wartime bounties to soldiers on the demobilization of conditions the 27th faced by examining such the 27th suddenly altered the economic for- varied topics as desertion rates, camp life, and tunes of many African Americans in Ohio is race relations with other Union soldiers. particularly interesting. This chapter also has The book concludes with its most impor- a fascinating description of the role USCT tant contribution to the topic of African veterans played in defending their newly won American soldiers in its account of what hap- constitutional rights, including the rights to pened to the men of the 27th USCT when vote and have access to education for their

SUMMER 2017 93 BOOK REVIEWS

children. Their effort to assert their rights describing social factors with equal ability. Her played a key part in shaping Ohio’s postwar book is uncommon in that while it is suitable political path, particularly the long-term suc- for readers new to the topic, scholars of the Civil cess of the Republican Party in the state. War will find much to recommend in it, espe- Overall, the book is an excellent study of cially the chapter on postwar public engagement. a single USCT regiment that goes a long way The work is well-written, thoroughly researched, toward revealing the actions and motivations of and suitably illustrated. Readers will find much free men in the USCT. Mezurek proves adept to like in this examination of USCT history. at recording the full extent of the 27th’s Civil Steven J. Ramold War experience, writing operational history and Eastern Michigan University

Kentucky and the Great War World War I on the Homefront David J. Bettez

avid Bettez’s book presents a detailed state effort.… Kentuckians of both genders; of all Dhistory of domestic mobilization during races, religions, political affiliations, and social the nineteen months in which the United States backgrounds; and from all locales banded was directly involved in wartime hostilities dur- together to support the war” (302). ing the First World War (April 1917–November Yet this broad summary does not pre- 1918). He outlines Kentuckians’ largely enthu- vent Bettez from examining the ways religion, siastic responses to food conservation policies, gender, regionalism, and race contributed to fuel conservation, war bond drives, conscrip- Kentuckians’ different expectations and experi- tion, and other wartime measures, all of which ences of the Great War. In fact, what is partic- amounted to an unprecedented governmen- ularly intriguing about his study are the indi- tal involvement in individuals’ everyday lives. viduals and communities that do not demon- At the outset, Bettez indicates that Kentucky strate this overt wartime enthusiasm. He uses presents an important case study for historians’ Christopher Capozzola’s term “coercive volun- work on the home front during the Great War, teerism” to describe how Kentuckians “were since the state was both “progressive” in its legis- forced to adhere to certain practices, not nec- lative efforts, and “regressive” in its enforcement essarily under penalty of law [though such of racial segregation and due to the presence of legal penalties did exist, particularly in regard wartime lynchings. As such, themes of prohibi- to allegedly seditious speech and writing], but tion, women’s suffrage, race relations, labor con- to avoid the approbation of their fellow citi- flict, educational reform, and other Progressive zens” (24). Bettez outlines the case of H. Boyce Era crusades receive particular attention in Taylor, a Kentucky Baptist pastor, accused of this volume. Ultimately, Bettez concludes, violating the Wilson administration’s Espionage “Kentuckians sublimated their differences to and Sedition Act because he objected to the pursue a larger goal: supporting America’s war privileged place afforded to the YMCA in army

94 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BOOK REVIEWS camps and some features of conscription laws. An even more revealing case involved arrests made with the aid of a primitive recording device (a Dictaphone planted inside a grandfa- ther clock) at a German American’s shoe shop, which resulted in a protracted legal battle over the nature of free speech, and whether private speech could present a clear and present danger to the nation in wartime. Kentucky’s large population of German American residents allows an important perspective on Wilson’s criminal- ization of wartime dissent, as Bettez concludes “stories about Kentuckians’ opposition to the Great War reveal the dynamic tension between First Amendment free speech and what was perceived as seditious talk during the war years” (84). He outlines how Kentuckians conducted “slacker raids” in Louisville, like those in New York and other cities, using vigilantism to sup- plement wartime regulations. David J. Bettez. Kentucky and the Great War: World Bettez presents an intricate level of detail War I on the Homefront. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2016. 440 pp. 44 b/w illus. 1 map. ISBN: and analysis, as each chapter discusses the 9780813168012 (cloth), $45.00. background and brief biography of prominent Kentuckians involved in wartime committees, If some portions emphasize a level of local- charitable work, governmental organizations, ism primarily of interest to state historians, and military command. Given his encyclopedic much of Bettez’s book proves broadly appli- coverage of names and various locales within cable. His discussion of the war’s economic the state, parts of this book would appeal pri- impact focuses on Kentucky’s agriculture and marily to readers looking for a thorough dis- mining operations, and his chapters on prohibi- cussion of 1910s state history. This is especially tion, women’s suffrage, and child labor reform true when Bettez writes in great detail about would likewise be instructive for all historians the composition of local draft boards and dis- of the Progressive Era. In his discussion of race, cusses at length the complaints of local draftees. Bettez outlines the controversies surrounding Bettez relies heavily on Kentucky local histories, black soldiers’ mobilization as well as outbreaks soldiers’ and civilians’ letters, state and local of lynchings and educational segregation iron- archives, and, in particular, Kentucky newspa- ically intensified during the “war to make the pers records. He supplements his narrative with world safe for Democracy.” He dedicates two small but well-chosen illustrations of military later chapters to religion and higher education, camps, recruitment and patriotic posters, and two subjects generally underexamined in a sin- several photographs of Kentuckians interested gle-volume survey of the First World War, and in wartime boosterism. concludes with a discussion of demilitarization,

SUMMER 2017 95 BOOK REVIEWS

the disastrous influenza outbreak that coincided sedition. Finally, he provides a lengthy summary with the end of the war, and postwar commem- of the U.S. Food Administration, but limits his oration in Kentucky. discussion of shoppers’ indifference to USFA While Bettez presents an insightful and propaganda. By the war’s end, Herbert Hoover highly readable overview, there are some limita- (head of the USFA and future president) would tions to his coverage. In particular, his book gives conclude that Americans were consuming more only cursory attention to the war’s first two and of the foods earmarked for conservation, and a half years, emphasizing instead the period after the United States would contemplate formal America’s declaration of war in April, 1917. The wartime rationing of the sort that was quickly result is that significant American programs, implemented during World War II. such as the Commission for Relief in Belgium These observations, however, should not and the Plattsburg movement for prepared- detract from the overall success of Bettez’s ness, as well as American reactions to important account. No single volume could possibly events—such as the sinking of the Lusitania, the address all of the facets of wartime prepared- Sussex Pledge, and the Zimmerman Telegram— ness, and his narrative should prompt readers to are compressed into the book’s opening chap- further examine U.S. involvement in the First ter. While it would be impossible for a book World War. An excellent state history of the war to address all facets of wartime activity, it is years, Bettez’s work will prove insightful for his- surprising the Bettez pays comparatively lit- torians examining the late Progressive Era in tle attention to George Creel’s Committee on Kentucky and beyond. Public Information and the wartime use of Justin Nordstrom propaganda, given his extensive discussion of Penn State Hazleton

Engineering Victory How Technology Won the Civil War Thomas F. Army Jr.

ngineering Victory: How Technology Won the military technology during the Civil War, his ECivil War by Thomas F. Army Jr. examines primary focus is on army engineers, their train- the convergence of military engineering and ing, and their military effectiveness. Navies are technological innovation as a decisive factor in largely overlooked, despite remarkable Civil the outcome of the Civil War. The author con- War innovations like steam-powered ironclads, tends that effective application of engineering torpedoes, and submersibles. expertise in the Union army, matched against Engineering Victory is divided into three main simultaneous engineering shortcomings and sections, the first of which describes the devel- missteps within the Confederate army, tipped opment of military engineering in the antebel- the balance in favor of northern victory. As such, lum North and South and compares the dispar- the book’s subtitle is slightly misleading; while ity in both professional engineering and edu- the author does examine the implementation of cation systems as well as industrial, technical,

96 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BOOK REVIEWS and professional differences that would have an important impact on the war. Northern engineering, technology, railroads, and financial support far exceeded southern efforts in those fields, and Army aptly compares these sectional differences in approaches to technical and scientific training, labor, slavery, and infrastructure. With the South’s emphasis on classical education rather than the more technical and scientific approach of northern educators, disparities between Union and Confederate engineering are unsurprising. The book’s second part examines early war efforts of both armies to create and implement effective engineering bureaus while struggling with the common problem of staffing these posts with civilian volunteers. As Army points out, U.S. Army engineers, the elite of their pro- fession, were reluctant to accept volunteers into Thomas F. Army Jr. Engineering Victory: How Technol- their exclusive club. The Confederate effort was ogy Won the Civil War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni- versity Press, 2016. 392 pp. 18 illus. 10 maps. ISBN: even more confused and halfhearted. These early 9781421419374 (cloth), $49.95. failures, according to the author, interfered with both sides’ efforts to wage war effectively. Army’s arguments reinforce the larger story of the Civil Ohio Valley helped prevent early disaster. Army War as an American volunteer military problem also praises Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s selec- with few easy solutions; while the rank-and-file tion of skillful engineers like Lewis Wallace and and army leadership each struggled with the dif- Charles Whittlesey to defend central Kentucky ficulties of waging national warfare with civilian and the essential supply hub of Cincinnati from mass armies, the technical branches also battled Confederate threats. Their judicious placement against the inherent complications of fielding of a line of fifteen batteries covering approaches large citizen armies. These difficulties bedeviled to the city, Army argues, prevented bloodshed both sides in the war’s first years and had demon- and preserved that vital Ohio Valley city. Army strable effects in campaigns on the Peninsula and also gives Buell’s successor, Maj. Gen. William S. elsewhere. Despite these problems, the early war Rosecrans, high marks for his efforts to improve record of Union engineering was not entirely the Army of the Cumberland’s engineers. bleak, a notable point for readers interested in the The third part ofEngineering Victory, per- Ohio Valley region during the war. Army finds, haps its most valuable contribution, consists of for instance, that Brig. Gen. Ormsby M. Mitchel’s detailed examples drawn from specific campaigns appointment to command of Union forces in the in 1863–65. While most of these examples focus Department of the Ohio helped secure Kentucky on the role of Union engineers, Army weaves in and that officer’s understanding of the com- Confederate examples for comparison. In a nar- plex engineering and supply problems of the rative that could easily overwhelm the reader with

SUMMER 2017 97 BOOK REVIEWS

detail, the author effectively traces the impor- Army emphasizes Union successes more tance of bridge and road construction, canals than failures and spends a good amount of and steamboats, siegecraft, transportation, logis- effort pointing out Confederate mistakes. tics, and labor management. Throughout this This raises a potential problem: by engaging section, Army emphasizes that good engineering in selective presentation of evidence, Army contributed to victory, while poor engineering paints a portrait of Union progress and evo- usually led to defeat in campaigns like Vicksburg, lution beside an equally one-sided story of Atlanta, and Gettysburg. This is hardly a novel Confederate incompetence or misfortune. argument, but one of the values of a study like This veers close to overstatement and is only Army’s is that the author effectively presents a part of the story. While the South certainly widely accepted and commonsense interpreta- grappled with shortcomings in the engineer- tion methodically and persuasively, with plenti- ing and technical fields, there is no doubt that ful examples. Even better, Army presents a coher- Confederate inventors, engineers, and plan- ent and interesting story of engineers at war, ners managed some remarkable accomplish- while providing the reader with both the context ments, with fewer resources, poorer training, and the continuity of his larger narrative about and different demands than those of their engineering’s essential importance to the war’s Union counterparts. Even so, Engineering outcome. The examples in this section, drawn Victory presents an interesting and, at times, largely from the engineering reports published compelling case that the North’s ability to in the Official Records, should prove useful for wield its technological and material advan- scholars and students of the technical branches tages through superior military engineering as well as those seeking a good introduction to was instrumental in securing Union victory. complicated engineering efforts like the sieges at Andrew S. Bledsoe Vicksburg and Petersburg. Lee University

The Dealmakers of Downstate Illinois Paul Powell, Clyde L. Choate, and John H. Stelle Robert E. Hartley

olitics is sometimes described as the art Stelle (1891–1962). All found common ground Pof the possible. And while politics is not in small towns and became power brokers in always artfully and elegantly conducted, politi- southern Illinois. They worked both sides of the cal history nonetheless offers many exemplars of aisle in the Illinois General Assembly, forging effective practitioners—masters of the quid pro coalitions that brought their constituents jobs quo. The political culture of downstate Illinois and new facilities, including universities and in the mid- and late twentieth century produced race tracks. In the pursuit of those objectives, three such consummate politicians in the per- they were not always saints. Hartley offers not sons of Paul Taylor Powell (1902–1970), Clyde political hagiography but rather informed com- Lee Choate (1920–2001), and John Henry mentary by a journalist who has reported on the

98 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BOOK REVIEWS political scene for many years—its monumen- tal achievements, controversies, and occasional corruption. The three figures whose careers he chronicles understood political muscle and real politick—the practical as opposed to the ide- ological dimensions of politics. Their careers frame significant intersections between state and national politics. The colorful personalities and careers of those legislators provide the grist for Hartley’s Dealmakers of Downstate Illinois, which is but the latest of several books on the political history of the Prairie State. He has also authored 1948: Truman, Stevenson, Douglas, and the Most Surprising Election in Illinois History (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2013) and his equally deft Paul Simon: The Political Journey of an Illinois Original (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2009). The volume before us is one part biography, one part politi- Robert E. Hartley. The Dealmakers of Downstate Illi- nois: Paul Powell, Clyde L. Choate, and John H. Stelle. cal analysis of elections and public policy, and Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2016. above all a portrait of the sinews and textures of 194 pp. 11 illus. ISBN: 9780809334759 downstate politics as exemplified by the author’s (paper), $27.50. subjects. It is a welcome reminder of Illinois’s geographical, political, social, and cultural diver- versus rural culture, or at least quasi rurality as sity and the manifold vectors of interest, com- manifested in relatively small towns and those petition, and political strategy between Chicago who represented their interests. Political broker- and distinct micro regions of downstate Illinois. ing by Powell, Choate, and Stelle on behalf of Readers will learn how the residents and poli- their region translated into new jobs and edu- ticians of “Egypt,” a familiar designation for cational opportunities. While none of those fig- southern Illinois since the mid-nineteenth cen- ures attained the national stature of an Adlai tury, established racetracks, “Egyptian Trotting,” Stevenson or a Paul Simon, this is not to say and Southern Illinois University—all of which that their respective political careers are less clearly reflect downstate aspirations and needs. deserving of attention. If second-tier figures And they might also be surprised to learn from a national perspective, they are first tier that from roughly 1955 to 1975 downstate from the perspective of those who value state Illinois exerted a major influence in state poli- and local history—which should never be seg- tics vis-à-vis the North Shore. Small town ver- regated from national history—or, to invert the sus the metropolis is a familiar Illinois theme, model, national history should never be con- past and present. But the volume before us is ceived, researched, and written outside of its a localized study of American urban culture vital regional and local contexts. This book is

SUMMER 2017 99 BOOK REVIEWS

a reminder of how those interrelationships and World War II, Staff Sargeant Choate received dependencies worked in downstate politics, as a Medal of Honor for singlehandedly destroy- exemplified by the political odysseys and lega- ing a German tank. It was an inestimable cies of Powell, Choate, and Stelle. boon to his political career. Stelle, a native of A few facts drawn from this volume make McLeansboro, Illinois, attended the Western this point. Powell, the best known of the Military Academy before earning a law degree three, became a fixture in the Illinois legis- at Washington University in St. Louis in 1916. lature beginning in the 1930s and served as A committed Democrat, he was a delegate to Speaker of the House of Representatives from most of the Democratic National Conventions 1959 to 1963. He was not charged with finan- from 1928 to 1960. He was an advocate of the cial improprieties while in office but was so Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, bet- posthumously: after his death, authorities ter known as the GI Bill. Thus the local and found shoeboxes containing $800,000 and national dimensions of Illinois politics were illegal racetrack stock in his Springfield hotel conjoined and amply illustrated in the lives of room. Choate was born in in West Frankfort, Powell, Choate, and Stelle without obscuring Illinois, in mining country, but later resided the angle of vision from down Egypt way. in Anna, Illinois. He served thirty years in Terry A. Barnhart the Illinois House of Representatives. During Eastern Illinois University

100 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY ANNOUNCEMENTS Richard C. Wade Award Announcement

he editors of Ohio Valley History are pleased to announce that Dr. Ann TTaylor Allen is the recipient of the fourth Richard C. Wade Award for the best article published in the journal in the past two years (volumes 15 and 16). Dr. Allen is honored for her article “The Most Sung Music in History: The Hill Sisters, the Louisville Kindergartens, and ‘Happy Birthday’” which ran in volume 16, number 4 issue of Ohio Valley History. In nominating Dr. Allen’s article for this award, the Wade Prize Committee commented that “Allen’s thesis is original and compelling, and in one fell swoop makes a strong contribution to histories of education, progressivism, women’s history, the history of the family, as well as to the history of Louisville and Kentucky. Her work asks us to think deeply about a song that is not as well-known as it first appears. Through a simple song, “Happy Birthday,” Allen unravels “a gendered occupational world…the hidden history of the song asks us to think about the power of patriarchy today—and how it limits our understanding of the past.” Ann Taylor Allen received her undergraduate degree from Bryn Mawr College and her doctoral degree from Columbia University. She is a Professor Emerita of history at the University of Louisville. Dr. Allen is the author of Satire and Society in Wilhelmine Germany (1984); Feminism and Motherhood in Germany, 1800-1914 (1991); Feminism and Motherhood in Western Europe, 1890-1970: The Maternal Dilemma (2005); and Women in Twentieth-Century Europe (2008). She has published many articles on international feminist movements and on the history of the kindergarten in Germany and the United States. Her latest book is The Transatlantic Kindergarten: Women’s Movements and Education in Germany and the United States.

SUMMER 2017 101 ANNOUNCEMENTS The Filson Historical Society Announces Opening of World War I Exhibit

he Filson Historical Society (Louisville, Ky.) is excited to announce the Topening of a new exhibit honoring the centennial of the United States’ entry into the First World War. In the Filson’s Nash Gallery, “Called to Arms: Kentuckians in the First World War” focuses on The Great War both abroad and at home. The exhibit covers the evolution of World War I by telling stories of local mobilization, perspectives from the trenches, advances in military technology of the times, and stories from the home front. The exhibit will be on display from Apr. 7– Dec. 29, 2017. For those unable to make it to Louisville, The Filson’s online image galleries highlight a selection of World War I posters, many of which were featured in the exhibit “Selling the War: Posters from WWI” as well as other WWI-related items. Galleries are available at http://filsonhistorical.org/galleries. For more on our current exhibits, please visit: http://filsonhistorical.org/ exhibits/ and for upcoming programs, visit http://filsonhistorical.org/events. For questions about the exhibits, contact Exhibits Manager Johna Ebling jpicco@ filsonhistorical.org

102 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY ANNOUNCEMENTS Iconic costumes from the Star Wars™ galaxy coming to Cincinnati Star Wars™ and the Power of Costume ver 60 of the finest hand-crafted costumes from a galaxy far, far away Oare coming to Cincinnati Museum Center. Star Wars™ and the Power of Costume features original costumes from the first seven films in theStar Wars™ saga and uncovers the challenges, intricate processes and remarkable artistry of George Lucas, the concept artists and costume designers. The costumes shaped the identities of these now famous characters, from the menacing black mask of Darth Vader and the gilded suit of C-3PO to the lavish royal gowns of Queen Amidala and Princess Leia’s gold bikini. Pulled from the collection of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Star Wars and the Power of Costume is a partnership of the museum, the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) and Lucasfilm Ltd. Star Wars and the Power of Costume is open for a limited run through October 1 at Cincinnati Museum Center. For more information visit www.cincymuseum. org/star-wars or call (513) 287-7000.

New blog offers inside look at collections and preservation

Off the Shelf ith millions of collection pieces at their fingertips, Cincinnati Museum WCenter’s curators have more stories to tell than can fit on the museum floor. Off the Shelf is a tour inside the stacks of Cincinnati Museum Center, a closer look at the tools and techniques of preservation and research. Cincinnati Museum Center’s collections include Archaeology, Archives and Manuscripts, Ethnology, History Objects and Fine Art, Invertebrate Paleontology, Mineralogy, Moving Images and Sound Recordings, Photographs and Prints, Printed Works, Vertebrate Paleontology and Zoology. Join the curators as they pull items off the shelf and reveal the stories behind them. Catch up with Off the Shelf atwww.cincymuseum.org/blog .

SUMMER 2017 103 ANNOUNCEMENTS Rare 1623 Shakespeare First Folio coming to Ohio Shakespeare and the Queen City hakespeare’s First Folio, the first bound collection of literature’s most prom- Sinent playwright, form the centerpiece of Shakespeare and the Queen City, a new temporary exhibition at Cincinnati Museum Center. The Folio is how much of the post-Elizabethan world has come to know William Shakespeare. Published in 1623 by two actors, the First Folio contains 36 of Shakespeare’s most famous works, including several that were never performed in his lifetime. Without the First Folio, these plays would have been lost to future generations. Complementing the First Folio are collection pieces from Cincinnati Museum Center and local organizations including the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, University of Cincinnati’s Archives & Rare Books Library and the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. These objects, from scripts and playbills to moving image footage and costumes, demonstrate how Shakespeare’s works hopped from the Elizabethan stage to American libraries, schools, homes and theaters. The exhibition also explores how his works have been presented on stages and in non-traditional venues and how they have been adapted into film, television, illustrated works and in many written forms. Shakespeare and the Queen City opens August 25, 2017 at Cincinnati Museum Center. The First Folio is on loan from the Folger Shakespeare Library. For more information visit www.cincymuseum.org/shakespeare or call (513) 287-7000.

Temporary Library Closure

he Cincinnati History Library & Archives at Cincinnati Museum Center Tis temporarily closed to the public to facilitate the restoration of historic Union Terminal. As a result, guests will be unable to visit the Cincinnati History Library but may still access the library’s online catalog, digital journals and other local history resources at library.cincymuseum.org. Limited service via telephone and email are available, but the library will remain closed to the public throughout the duration of the restoration project. We regret any inconvenience this may cause but hope that you will explore our online resources to support your research needs. We look forward to seeing you in the library again when the restoration project is completed. Please visit the library website at library.cincymuseum.org for updates and additional information.

104 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Submission Information for Contributors to

One digital copy of the manuscript, saved in Microsoft Word, *Regarding general form and style, please follow the should be sent by email to: 16th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. For specific style guidelines, please visit The Filson’s web- Matthew Norman, Editor or LeeAnn Whites, Editor site at: http://www.filsonhistorical.org/programs- Ohio Valley History Ohio Valley History and-publications/publications/ohio-valley-history/ Asst. Professor of History Director of Research submissions/submissions-guidelines.aspx. University of Cincinnati Filson Historical Society Blue Ash College 1310 South 3rd Street The refereeing process for manuscripts is blind. Referees 9555 Plainfield Road Louisville, KY 40208 are members of our editorial board or other specialists in Blue Ash, OH 45236 [email protected] the academy most appropriate to each manuscript. We have [email protected] no quotas of any kind with regard to authorship, topic, chronological period, or methodology—the practitioners *Preferred manuscript length is 20 to 25 pages via their submissions determine what we publish. Authors (6,000 to 7,500 words), exclusive of endnotes. must guarantee in writing that the work is original, that it *Please use Times New Roman, 12-point font. has not been previously published, and that it is not under *Double-space text and notes, with notes placed at consideration for publication elsewhere in any form. the end of the manuscript text. Accepted manuscripts undergo a reasonable yet rigorous *Include author’s name, institutional affiliation, editing process. We will read the manuscript closely as to and contact information (postal address, phone style, grammar, and argument. The edited manuscript will be number, and email address) on separate cover submitted to the author for consideration before publication. page. Only the article title should appear on the The Filson Historical Society (FHS), Cincinnati first page of the article. Museum Center (CMC), and the University of Cincinnati *Illustrations, tables, and maps that significantly (UC) hold jointly the copyright for all material published enhance the article are welcome. in Ohio Valley History. After a work is published in the *Authors who submit images should also provide journal, FHS/CMC/UC will grant the author, upon writ- citations, captions, credits, and suggestions for ten request, permission to republish the work, without fee, placement of images. subject to the author giving proper credit of prior publication to Ohio Valley History. Each author will receive five free copies of the journal in which the published article appears. Periodicals postage paid at Cincinnati, Ohio, and additional mailing offices.