Letters from the Front: General James A. and Lucretia Garfield Read
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
THE CLEVELAND CIVIL WAR ROUNDTABLE December 2010 473rd Meeting Vol. 32, #4 Tonight’s Program: Tonight’s Speaker: Letters from the Front: Ed Haney and Deborah Weinkamer General James A. and Ed Haney is an actor and director active in community theater. He has performed as Lucretia Garfield Read James Garfield over a decade. To learn more about the president, he worked at Lawnfield Their Civil War Letters as an interpreter. He and Deborah Weink- amer teamed up in 2001. Debbie also worked James A. Garfield and Lucretia Rudolph Garfield ex- as an interpreter at Lawnfield and has edited changed approximately 1,200 letters during their court- published material about the Garfields and ship and marriage in the mid-19th century. After Presi- their home. Together, Ed and Debbie have created an dent Garfield’s death, Lucretia stored the letters in a accurate portrayal of President and Mrs. Gar- vault in the Memorial Library she built at ―Lawnfield,‖ field. They have been honored to be personal their home in Mentor, Ohio. Currently, they are part of friends with the great-grandsons of the presi- an extensive collection, known as the Garfield Papers, dent and their families. in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Two key books contain selections from the Garfields’ correspondence: Crete and James: Personal Letters of Date: Wednesday, December 8, 2010 Lucretia and James Garfield, edited by John Shaw, and The Wild Life in the Army: Civil War Letters of James Place: Judson Manor A. Garfield, edited by Frederick Williams. These books 1890 E. 107th Street are the sources used in tonight’s program. Cleveland, Ohio Many of their shared letters chronicle James Gar- field’s service in the Civil War—28 months that saw Time: Drinks 6 PM him rise from lieutenant colonel to major general, from Dinner 6:45 PM relative obscurity to national prominence. They are timeless accounts of wartime thoughts and homefront Reservations: Please Call activities: details of their daily lives from the suffering Dan Zeiser (440) 449-9311 and carnage brought on by war, to the domesticity of or email [email protected] By 9 pm Sunday before meeting their first ―real home‖ and their toddler’s first words. These excerpts of their letters contain candid com- Meal choice: Roast beef au jus, mentary that remains timeless. Please join us in remi- whipped potatoes, green beans niscing as we hear ―Letters from the Front.‖ amandine, salad, and dessert. Cleveland President’s Message Civil War Roundtable Founded 1957 December 2010 President: Lisa Kempfer (440) 526-1318 Greetings, Vice President: Paul Burkholder (440) 918-0222 Secretary: Marge Wilson (216) 932-6558 Heart Strings: From the Front Line to the Home Treasurer: Michael Wells (216) 371-8449 Front Historian: Mel Maurer (440) 808-1249 Imagine a world without Twitter, texting, tele- Directors: phones, and mail delivered to your home six Dennis Keating Jon Thompson days a week. Welcome to the 1860s. It is hard to Garry Regan Syd Overall imagine sending a letter to a husband or a son Jim Heflich Gordy Gates during the Civil War. Where was your loved one? Fighting on the front line or languishing in website:clevelandcivilwarroundtable.com a hospital? Marching through the mud to the email: [email protected] next battlefield? Would you even receive a re- Editor - THE CHARGER - Dan Zeiser ply? Fortunately, much of the Civil War correspon- dence of James and Lucretia Garfield has sur- Cleveland Civil War Roundtable vived. Many of the letters chronicle James Gar- Past Presidents field’s twenty-eight months of service in the Civil War, including his promotions from lieu- 2010 Dennis Keating 1983 William Victory tenant colonel to major general, and his rise from 2009 Jon Thompson 1982 John Harkness relative obscurity to national prominence. 2008 Terry Koozer 1981 Thomas Geschke 2007 John Fazio 1980 Charles Spiegle 2006 Dave Carrino 1979 William Bates In their presentation, ―Letters from the Front,‖ 2005 Mel Maurer 1978 Richard McCrae Ed Haney, as Major General James A. Garfield, 2004 Warren McClelland 1977 James Chapman 2003 Maynard Bauer 1976 Milton Holmes and Deborah Weinkamer, as Mrs. Lucretia R. 2002 Bill McGrath 1975 Thomas Gretter Garfield, will give a first-person reading of the 2001 William Vodrey 1974 Nolan Heidelbaugh timeless accounts of the Garfields’ wartime 2000 Bob Boyda 1973 Arthur Jordan 1999 Dick Crews 1972 Bernard Drews thoughts and home front activities as well as the 1998 John Moore 1971 Kenneth Callahan details of their private lives, from the suffering 1997 Dan Zeiser 1970 Frank Schuhle 1996 John Sutula 1969 Donald Heckaman and carnage brought on by war to the domestic- 1995 Norton London 1968 Frank Moran ity of their first ―real‖ home and toddler’s first 1994 Robert Battisti 1967 William Schlesinger words. 1993 Kevin Callahan 1966 Donald Hamill 1992 Bob Baucher 1965 Lester Swift 1991 Joe Tirpak 1964 Guy DiCarlo, Jr. Ed and Debbie will be in character and living in 1990 Ken Callahan Jr. 1963 Paul Guenther the 1860s the entire time they are with us. They 1989 Neil Glaser 1962 Edward Downer 1988 Martin Graham 1961 Charles Clarke will take questions, in character. 1987 George Vourlojianis 1960 Howard Preston 1986 Tim Beatty 1959 John Cullen, Jr. 1985 Brian Kowell 1958 George Farr, Jr. Please join us for a heartwarming evening! 1984 Neil Evans 1957 Kenneth Grant Respectfully, Lisa Kempfer Cleveland Civil war Roundtable January 12 2011 2010/2011 Schedule The Dick Crews Annual September 8, 2010 Debate Abraham Lincoln’s Effect on Would foreign intervention have won Constitutional the war for the South? Interpretation Moderator: William F. B. Vodrey Wilson Huhn February 9, 2011 Lincoln’s October 13, 2010 Commando: William Cushing William Tecumseh Sherman William Vodrey Frank March 9, 2011 Bullock Garfield’s battles in Eastern Kentucky November 10, 2010 Scott Longren Civil War Female Spies April 13, 2011 The Fight for Money: The Income Tax Laws Of the Civil War Dr. Mary Walker December 8, 2010 Donald Korb May 11, 2011 Letters From the Front: Ulysses Grant General James A. and Lucretia Garfield John Marszalek Ed Haney and Deborah Weinkamer For membership in the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable, please visit our web site: http://clevelandcivilwarroundtable.com James A. Garfield, A Biographical Sketch James Abram Garfield was born in a log cabin in Orange, Cuyahoga County, Ohio on November 19, 1831, the youngest of five children. His father, Abram Garfield, was a native of New York, but of Massachusetts ancestry, descended from Edward Garfield, an English Puritan, who in 1630 was one of the foun- ders of Watertown. His mother, Eliza Ballou, was born in New Hampshire, of a Huguenot family that fled from France to New England in 1685. Abram Garfield moved his family to Ohio in 1830 and settled in what was then known as ―The Wilderness.‖ Abram made a prosperous beginning as a farmer and a canal construction worker in his new home, but died at the age of thirty-three after a sudden illness. Eliza Garfield brought up her young family unaided in a lonely cabin and impressed on them he high standard of moral and intellectual worth. She displayed almost heroic courage. Hers was a life of struggle and poverty, but the poverty of her home differed from that of cities or settled communities – it was the poverty of the frontier and all shared it. James A. Garfield started school at the age of three, attending classes in a log hut, and learned to read and began a habit of reading that would end only with his death. At ten years of age, he was helping out his mother’s meager income by working at home or on the farm of the neighbors. Labor was play to the healthy boy and he did it cheerfully, for his mother’s hymns and songs sent her children to their tasks with a feeling that the work was honorable. By the time he was fourteen, young Gar- field was fairly knowledgeable in arithmetic and grammar and was particularly interested in the facts of American history, having eagerly gathered information from the meager treatises that circulated in that remote section of Ohio. In fact, he read and reread every book the scanty libraries of his part of the wilderness supplied, and many he learned by heart. The tales of the sea especially thrilled Garfield and a love for adventure took over him. In 1848, at the age of seventeen, Garfield went to Cleveland and planned to work as a sailor on board a lake schooner. He soon realized that the life was not the romance he had envisioned. He did not want to return home without adventure and without money, so he drove for a few months for a boat on the Ohio canal. Little is known of this experience except that young Garfield secured a promotion from the tow- path to the boat, and a story that he was strong enough and brave enough to hold his own against his fellow workers, who were naturally a rough group. In 1849, Garfield’s mother persuaded him to enter Geauga Academy in Chester, Ohio, about ten miles from his home. During his vacations, he learned and practiced carpentry and helped at harvest, he taught and did anything and everything to pay for his schooling. After his first term, he needed no aid from home, he had reached the point where he was self- sufficient. While at Chester, he met a Miss Lucretia Rudolph, his future wife. He was attracted at first by her interest in the same intellectual pursuits, and he quickly discovered sympathy in other tastes and a congeniality of disposition, which paved the way for the one great love of his life.