[Funny thing about being born in 1944: as it turned out, I grew up with the modern Civil Rights Movement, and, as a result, one of my heroes has been–and remains–The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And, because of that, I began to equate King’s work almost solely with the concept of “civil rights.”
Little did I–or, apparently, many of my contemporaries, realize that King’s mission eventually would broaden to include a more inclusive category of reforms, “social justice” (think, for example of his coming out against the war in Vietnam, and of the decision to launch the “Poor People’s Campaign,” the fulfillment of which Dr. King did not live to see).
In past years, as I’ve put up posts each January commemorating Dr. King’s life and achievements, I’ve focused almost exclusively on his role as the voice of the modern civil rights movement. This year, when the King Holiday is celebrated on Monday, January 17, I thought I’d try something different: I want to offer, first, not a prayer for “civil rights,” but a prayer for “social justice.”]
* * * * *
[Prayer 27, “A Prayer for Social Justice” (Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, p. 823)]:
Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart [and especially the hearts of the people of this land], that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease, that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace, through Jesus Christ our Lord.Amen.
The Episcopal Book of Common Prayer offers several prayers for “social justice.” This one is my favorite, because it seems designed to reach the broadest audience. Any thinking person surely can identify with one or more of the prayer’s summaries of the troubles in the modern United States: “barriers which divide us”; “suspicions”; “hatreds”; and “divisions.”
So, will this simple prayer bring an end to our divisions? Surely you jest! The point is that the quest for “social justice” is ongoing, and all of us should support it.
* * * * *
Yet, this still is a post for the King Holiday, so I want to offer an additional opportunity to reflect on Dr. King’s legacy. This one comes from a King Holiday post I put up four years ago. I hope you enjoy it:
This blog, “Retired But Not Shy,” is almost twelve years old. During that time, I’ve put up two hundred and twenty posts, not including this one. If you go to the blog’s home page, you should notice several methods to tap into those posts.
If you’re a new visitor, though, you might not know where you’re going, and might want to get an idea of what posts are available. There are two ways to discover this: first, down the right hand side of the home page, you’ll find “Browse the Archives,” a long list of posts, in reverse chronological order, month by month, since June 2010, when “Retired But Not Shy” debuted. Do the math: that’s more than one hundred months to check!
You also can look at the list of “pages” at the top of the home page. There are currently nine topical listings of individual posts to help you find essays of interest, right? Well, sure, if you’re lucky; but what if you’re not?
* * * * *
Thus, I’ve decided to introduce a new feature: “Retro-Posts.” Occasionally, I plan to dig deeply into the blog’s archives and select some earlier posts for re-posting. Let me explain.
Will these be my favorites from “back in the day”? Not necessarily. Rather, these will be posts that, in retrospect, strike me as significant. For example, in this introduction to the series, I present lightly edited versions of my very first post (can you say, “Hello, World”? Sure you can!)–and the “About” page, where I tried to explain how I came to be a blogger and something about what I hoped to achieve; both were published, of course, at the very beginning of my blogging career! (So what did I know? Not much. . . .)
As it turned out, I didn’t accomplish either of those goals completely, but, if you’re lucky, I can make amends now. . . .
* * * * *
In these “Retro-Posts,” then, I hope to explore earlier stories that might easily be overlooked by new visitors trying to get a feel for the tenor of this blog. It’s always easier to start with the current posts and work back for a few months, and say, “OK, I know what’s going on here,” than it is to troll the complete Archives to determine what the blog-master has been trying to do.
Several of the “pages” on this blog probably do not need to be “publicized,” because they treat themes that have, over the past eleven plus year, drawn lots of “fans.
I’m thinking specifically of “Blues Stories”and “In Pursuit of Dead Georgians,” which have both drawn heavy traffic throughout the lifespan of “Retired But Not Shy.” It turns out that Blues fans are avid readers of posts on their favorite topics. On the other hand, my posts on Georgia history, while I’m sure they draw some Georgia history buffs, also tend to attract high school and college students each academic year who have been required by their teachers or professors to research specific topics in Georgia history as part of a school course (e. g., the “Yazoo Land Fraud,” of which I happen to be something of an authority–he said modestly!).
Yet, there are at least six other pages that, either because of the specific topic, or because of rather generic labels (e.g., “Historical Reflections,” “Teaching History”), probably seem vague to casual visitors. The remaining topics might seem at first to have more limited appeal to those who have discovered this blog (e.g., “Interdisciplinary Work,” “Prep School,” “The South/Civil Rights,” and “The Vietnam Era”), but even in those might be found some that appeal.
So, what I hope to do is to delve into those topics and select posts that I think might have broader appeal (or, in some cases, I wish had had a broader appeal when they first appeared!).
I’m not sure how well this approach will work, but I’m excited about launching “Retro-Posts” to “Retired But Not Shy.”
As always, comments are welcomed, either on the post(s), on Facebook, or via email. I hope you’ll enjoy this occasional detour down memory lane.
* * * * *
The Very First Post
[Originally published, June 14, 2010]
I’m actually writing this “first post” after publishing my actual “first post” [on the “About” page–see below]. (I’m still trying to catch on to this blogging business), so I don’t want to say a lot here, lest I give away too much of the real first post and make reading it unnecessary. . . .
Now that I’ve retired, I’m going to have a lot of time on my hands: no bells ringing every 55 minutes; no classes to prepare for, tests to make up and grade, averages to figure, or student comments to write. The question remains, though, now that I have “all the time in the world,” something scholars dream about, will I be able to push that research to a successful conclusion? Hence the subtitle of the blog, “Doing History After Leaving the Classroom.”
As for the title, “Retired But Not Shy,” I hope (in a much more modest way, of course) to follow the example set by my avatar, John Quincy Adams. “Retired” from the Presidency by the electorate after one term, John Quincy could have followed the example of his father John, who suffered a similar electoral fate in 1800, and returned home to Massachusetts to play the role of “Sage off the Stage,” but the younger Adams refused to do so. Instead, after a brief hiatus, he returned to public life with a vengeance, serving in the House of Representatives from 1831 to 1848. During that period, Adams waged a long fight against the infamous “gag rule” (intended to stifle discussion of the slavery question on the floor of the House), and he did so with such vigor and determination that southern congressmen, including the Georgians I’ve been studying for the last half century, became positively apoplectic at the mere mention of his name and tried everything they could short of assassination to shut him up. Adams finally did the job for them, dying of a stroke suffered on the floor of the House, in 1848.
Does that mean that I hope to keel over at my keyboard while composing yet another blog post in my inimitable prose? Not hardly! I intend to pursue a less formal brand of history through this medium, supplementing my current research efforts on Georgia’s political history by blogging on related topics that won’t fit the current manuscript project and “piloting” others that might appear there. I also will not be shy when it comes to treating other subjects that interest me, most of which I’m sure will fit under the rubric of “History,” but, even if they don’t, I’ll still have my say.
* * * * *
“About” Page
[Originally written, ca. June 2010; subsequently revised to include updates of post-retirement work.]
I retired after nearly four decades at a “prep school,” a History PhD. teaching on the secondary level and gradually growing to like it very much. During my career, I also managed to keep my hand in scholarly activities: reviewing books for historical journals; giving occasional public lectures on historical topics; and publishing several scholarly articles, as well as, now, three books (see below).
Once I retired, of course, I had a lot of time on my hands: no bells ringing every 55 minutes; no classes to prepare for, tests to make up and grade, averages to figure, comments to write–which I hope helps explain the “Retired” part of the blog’s title. Those of you who either know me or are familiar with the post-presidential career of my avatar, John Quincy Adams, will perhaps understand the “But Not Shy” part.
Since I retired from the classroom in June 2010, I’ve had “all the time in the world” to work on my research projects, something scholars dream about. In that period, I finished my “big book”and a collection of essays on Georgia history, both of which were published in 2015. And, as you can see, I’ve also created this blog. Hence the subtitle, “Doing History After Leaving the Classroom.”
[Note: This is the conclusion of a two-part post about the impact of Georgia’s notorious Yazoo Land Fraud (1795-1796) on a region of the state that was rife with land hunger. For Part 1, go here.]
* * * * *
Even as Robert Watkins was doing his best to oppose James Jackson’s efforts in Georgia repeal the Yazoo sale, Congressman Thomas P. Carnes and Senator James Gunn were working assiduously, if unsuccessfully, in Congress to smooth the way for the Yazoo speculators. Meanwhile, the state legislature, spurred on by James Jackson, passed the Rescinding Act and a series of resolutions designed to punish those who had worked to secure passage of the Yazoo bill. One of the resolutions charged that, because Senator Gunn “did attempt to corrupt and unwarrantably influence some of the Members” of the 1795 legislature to vote for the Yazoo Act, he had “lost the confidence of this Legislature.” Hence, the Georgia congressional delegation was instructed to work for an amendment to the federal Constitution “authorizing the Legislature of any state to recall a Senator in Congress therefrom whenever the same may be deemed necessary.”
Either because of this resolution or because of a speech by Georgia Congressman Abraham Baldwin on March 2, 1796, castigating the activities of land speculators, Senator Gunn demanded from Baldwin the right to peruse “any paper from the State of Georgia intended for public use” in his colleague’s possession. When Baldwin refused, Gunn challenged him to a duel, only to have one of Baldwin’s fellow congressmen accuse the Senator of a breach of privilege. After the Georgia senator and his “friend” in the affair, Senator Frederick Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, apologized for their conduct, the House Committee on Privileges ruled that “any further proceedings thereon are unnecessary.” When he learned of this exchange, James Jackson commented smugly that “if I had not pushed [Baldwin] at Philadelphia . . . and here . . .with thepapers—the speech [of March 2] would never have been made nor the correspondence [between Gunn and Baldwin] have taken place—. . . but enough—I am satisfied as it has turned out, it will answer the best of purposes.”
* * * * *
Since state officials were elected annually, most of those implicated in the Yazoo fraud were swept from office by the angry voters in 1796 and replaced by others who had opposed the sale. For example, Peter Van Alen, a New York native who had settled in Petersburg to practice law, had testified against the Yazoo speculators before Jackson’s legislative investigating committee; Van Alen was chosen one of the state’s solicitors general.
President Thomas Jefferson (en.wikipedia.org)
As Jackson consolidated his political control of Georgia in the wake of the Rescinding Act, he insisted that appointees and legislative hopefuls unite their opposition to Yazoo with a firm commitment to Jeffersonian Republicanism. This policy not only allowed Jackson to reward experienced politicians, but it also enabled him to attach political newcomers to his party, including a rising young attorney in Lexington, William Harris Crawford. As Jackson wrote to an ally in 1801, “we must take some of those Friendly young men by the hand.”
William Harris Crawford (en.wikipedia.org)
James Jackson also was not averse to stirring dissension among Yazooists. For example, in March 1795, Jackson urged General John Twiggs to “humour young Genl [John] Clark,” who had recently quarreled publicly with Senator James Gunn over the latter’s refusal to deliver a promised share in the Georgia Company to him. Like his father Elijah, John Clark was a powerful figure among the transplanted North Carolinians in the Georgia upcountry, and trying to neutralize his influence on the Yazoo question made good political sense to Jackson. As he wrote at the time, “all is fair play & if we heartily go to work we will upset their dirty work.”
* * * * *
James Jackson’s desire to establish Republican newspapers in the state’s major towns also affected the upcountry. At the time of the Yazoo fraud, there were two papers in Augusta: the Chronicle, which clung to the old-fashioned notion that an editor should publish pieces on all sides of controversial issues; and the Southern Centinel, whose editor, Alexander M’Millan, had received a sub-share of 28,000 acres of Yazoo land from the Georgia Company and opened his columns mainly to bitter foes of Jackson. During his governorship, Jackson helped to drive M’Millan out of business by refusing to pay him for services supposedly rendered the state. Upcountry men opposed to the Governor did not lack an outlet for their venom, however, for several months before M’Millan closed his business, George F. Randolph and William J. Bunce established the pro-Yazoo, anti-Jackson Augusta Herald.
Postmaster General Gideon Granger (en.wikipedia.org)
The Herald was soon engaged in a no-holds-barred struggle in partisan journalism with the Governor’s newly established sheet in Louisville, the Republican Trumpet. Jackson and his associates were convinced that the Herald had a “secret editor,” New England expatriate William J. Hobby, who had parlayed his uncompromising Federalism into the postmaster’s position in Augusta. Once he had been elected to the U.S. Senate in 1801, Jackson persuaded Postmaster General Gideon Granger that Hobby was mixing political partisanship with his federal duties, and Hobby was removed from office. Although his firing freed Hobby to join the Herald officially, Jackson was able to checkmate his editorial efforts, at least to some extent, by procuring the services of an experienced Jeffersonian editor, Dennis Driscoll, to take over the rival Augusta Chronicle in 1803.
* * * * *
Disputes growing out of the socio-economic differences between the coast and the upcountry had been a constant feature of Georgia politics since before the Revolution. This divisive sectionalism was something James Jackson could not afford to ignore as he extended the influence of the Jeffersonian Republican party across the state. Thus, even as Jackson and his associates killed Yazoo, they also attempted to satisfy the land hunger of frontier residents by exerting constant pressure on the national government to secure additional land cessions from the Indians. This policy was to become both bipartisan and permanent in the decades ahead.
Upcountry men also chafed at the fact that most members of the state’s congressional delegation hailed from the coast. As one piedmont resident wrote sarcastically in 1798, “It is certainly a great stretch of political indulgence, to us poor ignorant backwoods people, that any man above Chatham or Effingham [counties], could be found having sense enough to go to Congress.” In deadly earnest, he added that “From numbers and respectability,” upcountry residents were “justly entitled, to an equilibrium in the political balance. Our complaisance to the eastern members has been so great, that for some years they have had three members in Congress, and the back country but one; whereas the scale ought to be reversed.” In response to such complaints, James Jackson and his upcountry supporters apparently worked out a division of responsibility: after 1801, upcountry Republicans received a majority of the state’s congressional seats, while the governorship was conferred regularly upon Jackson’s low country lieutenants.
* * * * *
Governor John Clark of Georgia (en.wikipedia.org)
The most significant effect of the Yazoo land fraud on the politics of upcountry Georgia was the role it played in the emergence of the rivalry between William Harris Crawford and John Clark, which produced political factions that would dominate the state for almost four decades. Crawford rose rapidly in Jackson’s Republican party, becoming the leader of the upcountry Jeffersonians. His associates included several Broad River Virginians, like Charles Tait, an Elbert County lawyer, and William Wyatt Bibb, a Petersburg physician with political aspirations.
Although John Clark is usually portrayed as the champion of “democratic” frontier farmers, a sort of Georgia version of Andrew Jackson, the inner circle of the faction he headed was composed of lawyers and professional men, many with roots in North Carolina, who yearned for public office but refused to acknowledge the supremacy of James Jackson. Clark’s brother, Elijah Clarke, Jr., was a perennially unsuccessful candidate for Congress. The General’s brothers-in-law included Duncan Campbell; John Griffin; and William J. Hobby of the Augusta Herald, whom Republicans suspected, probably correctly, of serving as the unlettered Clark’s ghost writer during his frequent newspaper wars. Other notables in the Clark faction were John M. Dooly, like Clark the son of a noted Revolutionary partisan, and, after Jackson’s upcountry allies had frustrated his hopes for a seat in Congress, Petersburg attorney Peter Van Alen.
* * * * *
Although rivalry between the Virginia and North Carolina cliques was a traditional feature of politics in the Broad River Valley by the 1790s, the impact of Yazoo lifted it out of its regional context and incorporated it into an emerging state party system. John Clark had procured shares in at least two Yazoo companies, which put him at odds with Jackson’s insistence that political preferment be extended only to those opposed to the great land fraud. On two occasions in November 1801, following his first election to the General Assembly, Clark seemed to side with the disappointed Yazoo speculators on issues before the legislature. Furthermore, numbered among Clark’s relatives and supporters were men who were tainted, at least in Jackson’s opinion, by Yazoo or Federalism, or both.
During these campaigns Clark and Crawford engaged in such a heated correspondence in the press that a duel between them was averted only by the decision of a “court of honor” appointed by Governor John Milledge. Matters came to a head in 1806, when Judge Tait witnessed a deposition that seemed to implicate Clark in passing counterfeit money. Clark demanded Tait’s impeachment, but a committee of the legislature, for which Crawford served as spokesman, exonerated the judge. The full house adopted the committee report, and Clark, convinced that Crawford and Tait had conspired to damage his reputation, challenged Crawford to a duel. The two men met in December 1806; in the exchange of shots, Crawford was wounded. Clark challenged Crawford again in July 1807, but Crawford refused to meet him. Clark vented his anger by flogging Judge Charles Tait in the streets of the new state capital, Milledgeville.
George M. Troup (en.wikipedia.org)
Following James Jackson’s death in 1806 and Crawford’s election to the U.S. Senate in 1807, leadership in Georgia’s Republican party passed to Jackson’s Chatham County protégé, George M. Troup. There was no perceptible diminution of partisan strife with Troup’s elevation to head of the state’s Jeffersonians. Clark’s influence, which had been concentrated at first in the upcountry, spread gradually over the entire state until, after the War of 1812, Georgia had its first two-party system (go here and here), which looked so different from the one developing in the rest of the country that understanding it baffled contemporaries and continues to puzzle modern historians.
End of Part 2
* * * * * *
For those interested in reading more of my reflections on history, here are links to my books on the subject:
[Note: Tignall, Georgia, is about 125 miles east of Atlanta, in Wilkes County, only a few miles from the Savannah River. In 2002, when I arrived there to deliver a lecture, “downtown” Tignall consisted of a couple of gas stations; a combination police station and city hall; a café open daily from 6:00 am to 2:00 pm; some nondescript shops; an auto repair place; and the site of my lecture, the North Wilkes Library, a converted bank building at the far end of town.
That Tignall still existed was due primarily to the efforts of Dr. Sophia Bamford, an 88 year-old retired physician and the organizer of the lecture series of which my talk was a part. A Tignall native, Dr. Bamford had returned to her hometown after a distinguished medical career in Boston. Determined to keep Tignall on the map, Dr. Bamford stirred up interest in the region’s history, and her strategy apparently worked. The 2002 lecture series was the seventh she had put together since returning from Boston—and, so she told me—her last.
When I agreed to talk about the Yazoo Land Fraud and its impact on the politics of the Georgia upcountry, I hoped to do something that I had not been able to accomplish thus far: to examine for an audience, in some detail, how Yazoo affected political developments in Georgia on a local or regional level. I hoped I could create a picture that would transcend the sorts of broad generalizations that had characterized my previous efforts to discuss Yazoo. Surely I would be able to trot out examples from my ample stock of anecdotes (AKA, “hairy dog stories”) that would reveal something of the human aspect of the great land fraud.
If the “Yazoo Land Fraud” is not ringing any bells in your historical memory at this point, I suggest that you visit (or revisit) my attempt to summarize the origins of the Yazoo sale in 1795 through 1802, when Georgia ceded her western lands to the federal government in exchange for money and, more importantly, a promise from the national government that it would, when it could be done peacefully, remove the Creek and Cherokee Indians from the state. This compact would prove significant to the further development of political parties in Georgia, and it would also affect the development of national political parties and the course of the United States over the next six decades, through the Civil War.]
* * * * *
Georgia in 1790
* * * * *
Let’s look more closely at how the Yazoo Fraud affected politics in upcountry Georgia, around Augusta and environs. First, it is important to understand that land hunger was endemic there. In fact, one of the four successful Yazoo purchasers in 1795, the Georgia Mississippi Company, was made up of Augusta residents, including veteran Richmond County legislator and militia leader General Thomas Glascock. Moreover, virtually all upcountry legislators who voted for the Yazoo Act had accepted either sub-shares in the purchase or money from the organizers.
General Thomas Glascock (findagrave.com)
Judge William Stith of Warren County figured prominently in passing out money and other favors to legislators in return for their votes. Upcountry Congressman Thomas P. Carnes, who had received land from at least two of the purchasing companies, and Richmond County legislator Robert Watkins, the only member of the lower house to vote for Yazoo without accepting either money or land (though several of his relatives did), were staunch defenders of the sale throughout the late 1790s. George Walton of Richmond County, one of Georgia’s signers of the Declaration of Independence, former governor, and veteran jurist, joined Carnes and Watkins in penning newspaper essays defending Yazoo and attacking the motives of those who voted to rescind the sale.
George Walton, by Charles Wilson Peale (wikipedia)
In order to ensure the support of influential Georgians who were not in the General Assembly, the prospective purchasers distributed sub-shares in the purchase to prominent men throughout the state. Among the upcountry recipients were militia leaders Elijah and John Clark, and Alexander M’Millan, proprietor of the Southern Centinel, one of Augusta’s two newspapers. The involvement of these prominent upcountry men in the Yazoo sale and its defense apparently did not weaken their political influence in the region. Watkins and Glascock continued to represent Richmond in the General Assembly, and both men were elected to the 1798 constitutional convention. George Walton was returned to the bench by the legislature. According to James Jackson, who had led the ultimately successful campaign to repeal the Yazoo Act, the political strength of Thomas P. Carnes and William Stith remained formidable in the piedmont; it was all he and his supporters could do to keep those Yazooists out of the U.S. Senate, the national House of Representatives, and the governor’s chair between 1798 and 1801.
The legislature even appointed Robert Watkins and his brother George to compile a new digest of Georgia laws. When the brothers included the Yazoo Act in their compilation, however, Governor James Jackson refused to pay them and saw to it that William Harris Crawford and Horatio Marbury were put in charge of the project. The resulting Marbury and Crawford digest did not include the Yazoo Act; the defiant Watkins brothers had their volume, Yazoo Act and all, printed out of state.
* * * * *
Even most of the upcountry men who joined James Jackson in opposing the Yazoo sale were not averse to land speculation. Either they opposed on principle the corruption that had lubricated the sale, or, if one believes their Yazoo critics, they were motivated by disappointment at their inability to force themselves into the companies organized by the successful purchasers. William Few of Columbia County and General John Twiggs of Richmond County, who allegedly organized a raucous demonstration in the streets of Louisville, the state capital, in an unsuccessful effort to convince Governor George Mathews to veto the Yazoo sale, had also been members of the Georgia Union Company, a late-blooming organization whose bid for the western territory had been rejected by the legislature because it offered too little, too late. Another opponent of Yazoo, Richmond County legislator James McNeil, had dabbled unsuccessfully in land speculation in the early 1790s. Among Jackson’s upcountry allies, the one who showed the least interest in land speculation was probably Congressman Abraham Baldwin, a native of Connecticut who resided in Wilkes County.
* * * * *
Surely the most determined supporter of Yazoo and, thus, the most vigorous opponent of James Jackson in Georgia, was Richmond County’s Robert Watkins. The ink had hardly dried on the Yazoo Act before Watkins leaped to its defense in the pages of Alexander M’Millan’s Southern Centinel, and he later used the columns of Augusta’s other newspaper, the Chronicle, to attack the arguments in Jackson’s pamphlet, The Letters of Sicilius, which served as the Bible of the anti-Yazooists in the campaign to overturn the sale.
The pugnacious Watkins was one of only three representatives to vote against the Rescinding Act in 1796. In February 1797, the Richmond representative introduced in the state House a bill that would have ceded the state’s western territory (and, of course, the Yazoo claims) to the federal government; the measure was defeated overwhelmingly.
As a member of the 1798 state constitutional convention, Robert Watkins signed the revised frame of government under protest, arguing that adding the Rescinding Act to the state constitution amounted to an ex post facto law that impaired the obligation of contract. Convention delegates Thomas Glascock and James Gunn, who had been leading lights among the Yazoo purchasers, flatly refused to sign the revised constitution. Because Watkins, Glascock, and Gunn also were high-ranking militia officers and, thus, required to defend Georgia and its constitution, an angry Governor James Jackson convinced the legislature to require all militiamen to sign an oath promising to support the revised state constitution. The ensuing “loyalty oath controversy” kept the state’s military arm in turmoil for several years.
* * * * *
Robert Watkins did not confine his opposition to James Jackson to the halls of the legislature or the convention. After the adjournment of the General Assembly in February 1796, he accosted Jackson in the streets of Louisville and asked him “how he could reconcile it to his own feelings to have headed a vile party during the [legislative] session to the general injury of the whole state, and in unfounded attacks upon the reputation of a number of good men.” That kind of question, Jackson later recalled, “flesh & blood of such texture as mine would not bear.” In the ensuing scuffle, the two men fought with whips, pistols, bayonets, and fists before they were separated.
Jackson and Watkins clashed again several months later, this time in the streets of Savannah. Most of the lawyers gathered there to attend the federal court session reportedly snubbed Jackson, but Jackson considered Watkins’ conduct particularly galling, for when he accosted the Augusta attorney near the bay, Watkins merely laughed in his face. Jackson brooded over this insult for an hour or so, complaining to his friends and vowing his “determination of caning Watkins the first place he should meet him.” He then set out to find his antagonist. When the two finally met, they took up where they had left off in Louisville, pummeling each other with fists and sword canes. According to an eyewitness account by a Watkins partisan, Watkins was “drubbing [Jackson] pretty soundly when they were parted by the magistracy.”
End of Part 1
* * * * * *
For those interested in reading more of my reflections on history, here are links to my books on the subject:
[Note: This is the second of a two-part post, “The Civil War in Fifty Minutes,” that I gave to my AP United States History students at the prep school where I taught for nearly forty years. As I’ve explained elsewhere, my approach to war in general, not just the Civil War, had undergone a sea change between the beginning of the Civil War Centennial (1960) and my arrival at The Westminster Schools in Atlanta (Fall, 1973).
What I presented to my seniors was a version of the Civil War without the “trumpets and drums” approach I was familiar with from my reading during the Civil War Centennial (1960-1965). Instead, I stressed the causes of the war (in the previous unit, which charted the course of the nation’s history from the end of the Mexican-American War through the presidential election of 1860 and the tense months leading to the Confederate assault on Ft. Sumter in Charleston harbor [1848-1861], I already had offered my belief that the main cause of the war was slavery); turning points of the conflict; and its short and long-term consequences .
In Part 1, I took the story from the first battle of Manassas (Bull Run), July 27, 1861, through the battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862.
This post follows the course of the war from its turning point, the battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863), through the surrender of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox (April 12, 1865); examines why the North won (or, if you prefer, why the South lost); and, finally, looks at the impact of the conflict on the United States.]
* * * * *
Military Campaigns, 1863-1865
The turning point of the Civil War occurred in the summer of 1863. (The prelude was the death of Lee’s “good right arm,” Stonewall Jackson, at the battle of Chancellorsville in May.)
The military “turning point(s)” of the war occurred in July. Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania was stopped by Union forces at Gettysburg (July 1-3), but the failure of the Union commander, General George Meade, to pursue Lee allowed the Confederate forces to retreat across the Potomac River, for, as it turned out, the last time.
Then, on July 4, 1863, after forty-seven days of siege, the fall of the Confederate bastion of Vicksburg, Mississippi, cut the Confederacy in two, transferring control of the Mississippi River to the Union. Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas essentially were detached from the Confederacy. The Vicksburg campaign had been the brainchild of General U.S. Grant, who followed this exploit with additional victories in the Chattanooga campaign in November.
Gen. William T. Sherman (en.wikipedia.org)
Following the success of the Chattanooga campaign, General Grant moved North to take over supreme command of the Union armies, leaving General William T. Sherman in Georgia to deal with a numerically inferior Confederate force under General Joseph E. Johnston.
Meanwhile, General Sherman took Atlanta after a protracted siege (August, 1864). Then, in mid-November, Sherman set out on his (in)famous “March to the Sea,” reaching Savannah in time to present that city to President Lincoln as a “Christmas present.” Then Sherman turned North, in hopes of effecting a junction with Grant in Virginia.
Back in Virginia, even the usually stolid Grant was beginning to wonder whether the meager progress he had made was worth the staggering losses he had suffered. Grant decided to strike out across the James River in order to seize Petersburg, thus severing one of the main Confederate supply arteries. The move was a bold one, but Grant couldn’t quite pull it off. Once more, battle-weary troops faced one another from opposing trenches.
In order to approach Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy, in May 1864, Grant led the Army of the Potomac into an area of dense undergrowth and swampland known as the Wilderness. He moved his troops remorselessly to the left in an attempt to interpose them between Lee and the Confederate capital at Richmond. Lee frustrated those efforts, but at a terrible cost to both sides. Battles followed one another with grim regularity—the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Yellow Tavern, Cold Harbor.
With the steady approach of General Sherman from the South in the Spring of 1865, the situation of Lee’s army became truly desperate. He managed to evacuate both Richmond and Petersburg, but his attempts to break through the ring of steel forged by General Grant proved futile. The end came on April 9, 1865, at tiny Appomattox Court House, with formal surrender ceremonies on April 12, 1865.
* * * * *
Why did the North win, or, why did the South lose, the Civil War?
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln (en.wikipedia.org)
The Confederacy failed to obtain European, especially British, recognition of their independence. Why? First, the Union had superior diplomacy, thanks to Charles Francis Adams, minister to Great Britain. Moreover, cotton was notking, as events proved. England had accumulated huge surpluses of cotton by the start of the war, supplemented later by cotton from Egypt and India.
Moreover, England made money selling to both sides during the war, and needed Northern wheat. And, unfortunately for their cause, the Confederate forces failed to win victories at the right moment as the war wound down (e.g., Antietam, Gettysburg).
The tremendous material advantages of the Union enumerated earlier, which became greater as the war dragged on, were further solidified because the Union enjoyed superior political leadership on presidential, congressional, and state levels.
* * * * *
Confederate President Jefferson Davis (en.wikipedia.org)
It wasn’t simply the strengths of the North that determined the outcome, but also the weaknesses of the South that came into play as the war progressed. For example, the Confederacy suffered from second-rate political leadership. Confederate leaders were simply too quarrelsome (President Davis vs. the Confederate cabinet; Davis vs. his Vice President, Alexander Stephens; Davis vs. the Confederate Congress; Davis vs. Confederate state governors). This dissension was probably the result of the individualism nurtured by the plantation system, frustration over the failure to win a final victory, and, maybe, a sense of guilt about slavery.
The Confederacy also was afflicted by a lack of flexibility: neither the economy, nor the popular mind, could adjust to the requirements of modern warfare. (Here were planted the seeds of the “Lost Cause” myth that proved so harmful in the post-war era.) The South also was guilty of bad judgment. Southerners overestimated their own strength and the importance of Southern cotton to England, and they underestimated the deep devotion of the people of the North to the concept of the Union. Finally, Southerners were not properly prepared for defeat, and, hence, morale became very low as the people of the Confederacy lost the will to win.
* * * * *
The Impact of Civil War on the United States
The Civil War ended slavery, although it certainly did not settle the race question in the United States. The war also determined the nation’s character: hereafter, the United States would be one nation, not two or more competing aggregations of states, each claiming to be sovereign.
The Civil War was, in the words of Emory University History professor Bell Wiley, who taught an incredibly popular course on the Civil War that I took in graduate school, “the watershed of American history.” Before the war, Wiley contended, the United States still was predominately agrarian, rural, and innocent. After the Civil War, the nation was increasingly industrialized, urbanized, and a lot less innocent.
* * * * *
The Human Costs of War, 1861-1865
More Americans (remember, soldiers onboth sides of the Civil War were Americans) were killed in the Civil War than in all other American wars combined, from the American Revolution through the Korean conflict, inclusive:
618,000 (Civil War) v. 606,000 (all other wars from the Revolution through the Korean conflict. But, the Vietnam War [1961-1973] added 58,000 deaths):
360,000 (Union ,1½ % of total population in the Union states)
258,000 (Confederates) (4% of white population in the Confederate states)
Also, perhaps 425,000 Americans were disabled, physically, mentally, or both during the Civil War:
275,000 (Union)
150,000 (Confederate)
End of Part 2
* * * * * *
For those interested in reading more of my reflections on history, here are links to my books on the subject:
[Note: As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, my approach to the Civil War has had its ups and downs. By the time the Civil War Centennial opened in 1960, I had become interested in the conflict; so interested that, by the time I graduated from high school in 1962, I was suffering a case of “Civil War burnout.”
In college, I spent my time trying to learn as much as I could about history worldwide, without actually studying the American Civil War in any detail. My trip into the past was interrupted by two years of active duty in the U.S. Army following my graduation from college, during what we now know was the turning point of the War in Vietnam (1966-1968).
Then, in grad school, I wound up in a year-long course on the Civil War, taught by a recognized expert in the lives of the war’s common soldiers. Although it was an interesting course, we didn’t get much beyond the battle of Gettysburg, if memory serves.
Once I began teaching Advanced Placement (and “Regular”) American History at an Atlanta “prep school” in 1973, I had changed my mind about the war that had been, according to my grad school professor, the “watershed” in this nation’s history. I no longer wished to approach America’s wars from the viewpoint of “drums and trumpets history.”
What follows is my attempt to teach about the Civil War in my high school American History courses, in the form of a lecture brazenly entitled “The Civil War in 50 Minutes.” I used it after we had looked in some detail at the history of the United States from the end of the Mexican-American War through the Confederate assault on Ft. Sumter, in Charleston (S.C.) harbor (1848-1861). My approach to the coming of the Civil War emphasized the role of slavery as themost important cause of the war.]
* * * * *
Comparative Resources in 1861
The number of men available to serve was a definite Northern advantage: twenty-three Northern states (including Kentucky and Missouri, which were Northern slave states) had a population of 22,000,000; the eleven Southern states had a population of 9,000,000, but of these, 3,500,000 were slaves and another 150,000 were free Negroes.
The North also had the edge when it came to material resources. For example, between 1830 and 1860, the North had become more and more industrialized, and so those states were much better prepared for the all-important conversion to wartime production required by the outbreak of hostilities. 5,100,000 urban residents in the North were engaged in manufacturing in 1860.
The South developed a few textile factories, but it had become increasingly committed to agriculture between 1830 and 1860. As a result, in 1860, only 166,803 urban residents in the South were engaged in manufacturing.
The North enjoyed a similar edge in the development of natural resources, for the simple reason that the South’s coal and iron deposits were largely untapped by 1860. Moreover, the nation’s financial resources (money, credit, and banking facilities), were located almost exclusively in the North. Lacking hard currency, the South had to depend upon paper money, with a few loans. By the end of the war, Southern currency was almost worthless, with one dollar in paper equal to one cent in hard money. (By early 1962, both governments had resorted to paper money, though, which meant that the North also worried about inflation.)
Another Northern advantage was in the naval and merchant marine vessels at its disposal. The Union navy had seven hundred ships, including shallow-draft gunboats that were supposed to provide effective collaboration with the Union army in the west. At its peak, on the other hand, the Confederate navy had about forty vessels. It was obvious that, when war broke out and major European powers recognized the Confederacy as a belligerent, the Union would be required under international law to impose a blockade of the Southern coastline, and the size of the Union navy would give the North an edge.
Yet another Northern advantage was in the area of transportation and communications. At the outbreak of war, there were 22,000 miles of railroad tracks in the North. The North also possessed an ample supply of rolling stock (locomotives and train cars) as well as better facilities to repair and replace them.
In the Confederacy in 1860, there were about 9,000 miles of railroad tracks, but of an inferior quality to those of the Union, and with less rolling stock available. The sole repair and replacement facility in the South, Richmond’s Tredegar Iron Works, was diverted early on to the manufacture of cannons, iron plate, and munitions.
The number of trained mechanics in the Northern states far exceeded those in the South. The Union also had a constant influx of immigrants, including 180,000 males of military age during the war.
There also was greater diversity of talent among the people of the North. Not only were there more Northerners with technical and mechanical skills, but there also were more Northerners who were experienced in organization and administration. Southerners, on the other hand, were mostly experienced in running plantations, few of which were models of organizational efficiency.
The South did have the advantage of interior lines. This meant that, to win the war, Union forces would have to invade Confederate territory and defeat Rebel armies, while the Southerners would be able to shift their forces to meet attacks at various points, using their railroads.
Another advantage enjoyed by the South, at least initially, was in military leadership, especially on the all-important regimental and company levels. Upper-class Southerners attended the United States Military Academy at West Point in greater numbers than did their Northern counterparts. Once in the army, Southerners tended to remain longer than did Northerners, who were more likely to be attracted by the alluring prospects of the business world.
Moreover, the military profession was popular in the South, where there were numerous militia units, not to mention the slave patrols used to restrict the freedom of movement of the region’s slaves.
Officers of the ranks of colonel and below were elected in both armies. Those chosen usually had raised and equipped their units. In the South, these officers tended to be planters or their sons, most of whom were recognized as leaders and possessed at least a modicum of military training. In the North, on the other hand, officers elected were usually the most prosperous community leaders or the most popular politicians, but they possessed little military experience.
The odds in 1861 were not so much in favor of the Union as the listing above might indicate. The South might very well succeed if it could parlay its initial military advantages into early victories on the battlefield, and combine them with diplomatic recognition by one of more of the major European powers. On the other hand, if the conflict became protracted, for whatever reason, the odds would increasingly favor the North.
* * * * *
Military Campaigns, 1861-1862
The first real battle of the Civil War occurred at Manassas (Bull Run), on July 21, 1861, and it was a Confederate victory. As a result, Southerners believed that the completion of their drive for independence was within their grasp. On the other hand, Northerners suddenly realized that war was a serious business.
In 1862, the war saw initial Union victories in the West, and a standoff in the East.
Gen. Ulysses S. Grant (wikimedia.org)
In the West, the most important development was the rise to command of Union General Ulysses S. Grant, who began with three victories in the western theatre. In February 1862, a combined land and river force under Grant took Fort Henry and Fort Donelson on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, which opened a water route into the heartland of the Confederacy.
On April 6-7, Confederate forces under Albert Sidney Johnston caught Grant by surprise at Shiloh, but the Union commander recovered his poise and succeeded in driving the Confederates from the field. Total casualties (killed, wounded, missing, for both armies) at Shiloh were over 23,000, exceeding the combined totals of the Revolutionary War, the Mexican-American War, and the War of 1812. Finally, on April 27, 1862, New Orleans fell to the Union, which gave the Northern forces control of the mouth of the Mississippi River, cutting the Confederacy in two.
Meanwhile, in the Eastern theatre, a series of hapless Union generals demonstrated a common failing—the inability to defeat the Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
Gen. Robert E. Lee (wikipedia)
In June, 1862, Union General George B. McClellan landed forces on Virginia’s James River Peninsula, but suffered defeat in a series of battles known as the Seven Days’, and then returned to Washington, D.C. McClellan’s successor, General John Pope, lost to Lee at Second Manassas (Bull Run) on August 29-30.
Following Pope’s disgrace, McClellan returned to command the Union forces in the East. Although he was lucky enough to obtain a copy of General Lee’s battle plan, the unhappy McClellan could do no better than a draw at Sharpsburg (Antietam) on September 17. Antietam was the bloodiest single day in the Civil War, with 23,000 total casualties, including Six thousand American (Union and Confederate) dead, almost as many colonial troops as were killed during the Revolutionary War.
Lee, who had hoped to tip the balance in favor of European recognition of the Confederacy by a strong showing in Maryland, retreated into Virginia. President Abraham Lincoln used this occasion, which was as close to a victory as his forces would get for a while, to issue the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22.The final version of the Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863, but it only affected slaves in areas still under Confederate control. This had little immediate effect on Southern slaves. There was neither a flood of refugee slaves nor insurrections on Southern plantations.
Antietam did deal a permanent setback to the Confederacy’s hopes for foreign recognition, because antislavery feeling was quite strong in Europe, especially in England.
Then, in December, Union General Ambrose Burnside’s forces were bloodily repulsed by the Confederates of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at the battle of Fredericksburg.
End of Part I
* * * * * *
For those interested in reading more of my reflections on history, here are links to my books on the subject:
[Note: Last year, I offered a “blast from the past” about the celebration of Independence Day in Antebellum Georgia, a summary and analysis of a 4th of July oration delivered in 1838 in the small town of Hawkinsville by Dr. William Germany.
The Independence Day oration I’m featuring this time is from 1815; the location is the Presbyterian Church in Savannah; and the speaker is Thomas U.P. Charlton. It is important to put the speaker—and the speech—into historical context. Thomas Usher Pulaski Charlton (1779-1835), was one of the “children of the Revolution,” youngsters who had grown up in the shadow of America’s War for Independence. Charlton’s father Thomas was a physician who served the American cause during the war. Charlton senior died when his son Thomas was young, and in 1791 his widow, Lucy Keenan Charlton, and the boy, moved to Savannah.
* * * * *
James Jackson (1757-1806), Georgia’s first “political boss,” and T.U.P. Charlton’s mentor
Thomas U.P. Charlton was educated in Savannah and always considered it his home. He was admitted to the bar in 1800; elected to the state legislature at age 21; and chosen attorney-general of Georgia at 25. He, along with future governor and U.S. Senator George M. Troup, were important cogs in the political machine that James Jackson (1757-1806) assembled in the wake of the infamous Yazoo Fraud, to roll back that corrupt transaction and take political control of the state from the speculators and their political allies.
Charlton and Troup, writing as “A” and “Z,” supported Jackson in the press, launching journalistic attacks aimed at those who assailed him. And, when those ink-stained “assaults” were insufficient, the two young tyros took a whip to an anti-Jackson editor in Savannah. Both Charlton and Troup were rewarded by Governor Jackson for their work on his behalf, serving as military aides during his governorship. Moreover, Jackson chose Charlton as his literary executor, and this appointment produced, in 1804, the first volume of Charlton’s biography of Jackson. Volume 2 of the Jackson biography never appeared, but volume 1 remains a useful combination of a sketch of Jackson’s life and a collection of his letters.
Following James Jackson’s death in 1806, Thomas U.P. Charlton delivered a surprisingly even-handed eulogy for the fallen anti-Yazoo leader in Savannah’s Masonic lodge. Charlton asserted that Jackson, “[b]elieving that his political tenets were such which every citizen ought to feel, . . . was impatient under contradictions, and apparently intolerant of his opponents. . . But tho’ [sic] he permitted occasional triumphs of warmth over his real and natural benevolence of character, and though [he was] unbending and impetuous, yet no man possessed a stronger sensibility. . . But if he was warm in his resentments, he was no less sincere, fervid and disinterested in his friendships. . . .”
* * * * *
It is important to remember that the 4th of July 1815 occurred only a few months after Georgia learned of the Treaty of Ghent, the official diplomatic end of the War of 1812. During that conflict, Charlton had served as chairman of the town’s Committee of Public Safety, charged with defending Savannah against an expected British invasion.
After the war ended, Thomas Charlton left state politics for the law and the bench. In 1824, he compiled the first volume of Georgia’s court decisions, and, in 1825, he was member of a committee that compiled the statutes of Georgia. He also served two terms as mayor of Savannah (1815-1817, 1819-1821).]
* * * * *
The account of the day’s festivities in The Republican; and Savannah Evening Ledger, July 6, 1815, provided an overview of events:
The day was ushered in amidst the roar of cannon; the peal of bells; the unfurling of the star-spangled banner of the country; and the plaudits of those who know to appreciate freedom; and who are ready to defend it.
At 10 o’clock the different volunteer corps paraded, and performed many handsome evolutions thro’ the principal streets in our city—after which they fired salutes in honor of the day.
At 12 o’clock the citizens assembled when a procession was formed[,] escorted by the different volunteer companies, moved from the Exchange to the Presbyterian Church, preceded by the alderman, the president and vice-president of the day, the committee of arrangements and the Orator. Having arrived at the Church, the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE was read by Levi S. D’Lyon, esq which was followed by bursts of applause. An ORATION, classical, chaste and excellent, was then delivered by honorable THOMAS U.P. CHARLTON. . . .
The Church was crowded, and the attentive audience of a vast number of ladies was witnessed with peculiar pleasure and interest.
After the Oration, the bells rung a merry peal while the citizens and the military, resorted to their respective places of dining. The day was closed in “that feast of reason and flow of soul,” so characteristic of freemen—so becoming the important event.
* * * * *
Charlton’s oration on the 4th of July in 1815 was published at the request TheRepublican’s editor, Frederick S. Fell. [To read the entire address, go here for Part I; and here for Part II] According to the tradition established early in Georgia’s post-Revolutionary history, Levi S. D’Lyon, an up-and-coming local political figure, read the Declaration; the thirty-five year old Thomas Charlton, by now an experienced politician and jurist, used his oratorical talents to place the Revolution, and the ideals for which it was fought, into a “modern” context:
FELLOW CITIZENS AND COUNTRYMEN! I never had the honor, if it be an honor, to breathe for a moment the air of monarchy.—Born a citizen of the Republic [in 1779], some years after it had taken its separate station among the powers of the earth,–reared up under the benignant band of liberty,–educated in the principles of ’76, I hope I am not on this occasion an unfit medium to convey the doctrines, for which [General George] Washington unsheathed his sabre [sic], and his heroes combatted.
The “doctrines” for which Washington and other American patriots fought were not the product of ancient Greece or Rome, according to Charlton; rather, the origins of the idea of representative government lay in the “woods of Saxony,” “confined to the imperfect and crude legislation of barbarian hordes.” Those ideas were carried to England by “her barbarian conquerors,” and eventually they were “perfected in the forests of America,” then worked their way into minds and hearts of the “ancestors” of those in his audience: “The principle of Equality leaves the post of honor accessible to every citizen of virtue and capability.” Equality, along with freedom of religion, were “among the primary and fundamental principles upon whose everlasting foundations are erected the proud temple of our National Liberty.“
Yet, according to Charlton, even after the country had won its Independence, the former Mother Country would not leave her alone to enjoy it:
She stole our citizens,–plundered our property,–under unrighteous expositions of national law, interdicted our commerce,–and insultingly repeated, as far as she was able, the injuries and wrongs proclaimed in the declaration of Independence.
Delighting in the realms of peace and Liberty our government was unwilling to breast the tumults of war. . . . It feared many of those evils which had been predicted. It forbore as long as its dignity, its honor and insulted pride would suffer it to forbear. . . .At length, the Republic was compelled to acknowledge its fear and imbecility, or meet again in battle the haughty monarchy of Britain. . .When this was the alternative, the Republic did not hesitate to buckle on its armour [sic].—
Thereafter, Charlton launched into several lyrical paragraphs recounting the glories of American arms during the War of 1812. He argued that, when the war opened, there were no George Washingtons to protect the Republic, but that, before the war was over, American
Heroes and chieftains accordingly sprung from the bosom of ensanguined conflicts, and amazed the veterans of Europe, by their skill, their enthusiasm and their Victories. . . .
The scene closed and left the proud banner of ’76 floating in pristine renown o’er the sacred principles of the Revolution. . . . May those principles be eternal! May the Almighty ruler of the universe continue to shed his benediction on this great and favored people! May the accursed murmurs of faction be hushed in the louder acclamations of patriotism! May we ALL as friends and Fellow Citizens feel that we have a country entitled to the warmest affections of our heart; may we ever hail with joyous burst of exultation this memorable Jubilee,–is the fervid prayer of the Citizen, who has the honor to address you, and to thank you for your indulgence and your patience.
* * * * *
Thomas Charlton was a relatively young man when he delivered this address, but he had already enjoyed a successful political career in Georgia.
Charlton admitted that he was not a member of the “Revolutionary generation,” but he was well aware of the work he had done in Savannah during the War of 1812. To him, the message to be emphasized was that “The scene closed and left the proud banner of ’76 floating in pristine renown o’er the sacred principles of the Revolution.” There was no doubt that Britain was the villain of the morality tale Charlton told.
The treaty ending the war reached the United States on February 11, 1815, and was unanimously ratified by the Senate four days later. Yet, the Treaty of Ghent merely restored the status quo ante bellum, a sort of half-baked attempt to end hostilities but to set aside lingering problems for later resolution. Thus, Charlton was addressing an audience that knew the war was over but was still unsure of what that meant.
* * * * *
Two other points about the oration deserve mention. First, “equality,” by Charlton’s reckoning one of the two great principles for which the American Revolution (and the War of 1812) had been fought, only applied to white male citizens in 1815. No one at the time could know how long it would take for the ideal of “equality” to be extended to other Americans. In fact, slavery was not mentioned.
In Georgia, the War of 1812 ushered in a period when bickering Yazoo factions would, for a variety of reasons, be replaced by personal political factions, one headed by William Harris Crawford and George Troup, who had cut their political teeth in James Jackson’s anti-Yazoo movement; the other by General John Clark. These rising political leaders and their partisans would bring a renewed bitterness to state politics and produce Independence Day orations that concentrated less on the abstract principles of the Declaration of Independence and more on showing how one group of Georgia politicos embodied what made the nation great, while the opposing “party” had abandoned the ideals of the Revolution for corruption and personal power.
So much for the idea of the “Common Good,” which lay at the heart of the “republicanism” that had sustained the American cause before the outbreak of war in 1775. The political system bequeathed to Georgia by the War of 1812 would make the state’s politics an enigma to non-Georgians for the next generation (see here, here, and here).
* * * * * *
For those interested in reading more of my reflections on history, here are links to my books on the subject:
[Note: In honor of Father’s Day, I wish again to recognize Ben Lamplugh, whose story has occupied so much of this blog over the past couple of years (2019–2020). Here I combine lightly edited excerpts from the “Introduction” to the series and the final episode, to provide both an overview of his life and some sense of our relationship.]
* * * * *
Here is a quick sketch of my father, Ben Lamplugh. He was stocky, red-headed, usually quiet, and skilled with his hands. He might, or might not, have graduated from high school. One of his children remembers hearing that Ben was a “lapsed Catholic,” but the others are not so sure. Ben was a member of “The Greatest Generation,” who did his duty during World II but never saw combat, though not for lack of trying.
After the war, Ben took advantage of the G.I. Bill, apprenticing as a carpenter at a boat-building firm near Baltimore, Maryland, the first step in what became a long career as a blue collar laborer. His upbringing had not prepared him well for fatherhood, but he did the best he could to keep his growing family fed, clothed, and housed, trying to fulfill the one role in life he seemed sure of, that the husband was the “head of the house,” and, thus, by definition, the “breadwinner.”
Ben was not, at first, prepared gracefully to accept his wife Betts’ desire to return to the workforce once their three children were in school, but the family’s perilous financial situation—not to mention Betts’ insistence that she would go back to work, no matter what he thought—apparently combined to win his grudging assent.
Because of the demands of his various jobs, Ben was a distant father. He’d arrive home late for dinner many nights, then fall into his recliner, with a beer and a cigarette, and nod off to sleep before the television set.
The family owned one car, which Ben needed when his part-time jobs required him to work on weekends, as they frequently did. Family vacations were few, but Ben occasionally could be persuaded to drive the family somewhere (anywhere!), to visit our grandparents in Delaware, for instance, or to have a picnic along a Maryland highway.
Ben loved his family as much as he was able, and he tried to fulfill his role of father, and “head of the household,” in the 1950s. Still, Ozzie Nelson (of “Ozzie and Harriet” fame) or Jim Anderson (“Father Knows Best”), sitcom symbols of Fatherhood in post-World War II America, Ben was not. He also didn’t relish his role as disciplinarian that Betts sometimes required when her efforts to bring order to the household fell short of success. In frustration, Betts would warn us kids, “Just wait until your father comes home!” When Ben arrived, Betts dumped the disciplinary issue de jour into his lap and left him to settle it. We could tell just by looking at him that Ben would rather have been anywhere else at that moment!
Our parents’ marriage hit the skids in the summer of 1964, and divorce soon followed. Ben spent the next twenty-two years as a single man, though he did not always live alone. He died on December 23, 1986, a few weeks short of his sixty-sixth birthday.
* * * * *
Ben and I seldom seemed to hit it off. When we first met, at the end of World War II, he looked at me in my crib, and I, having up until then been raised in an apartment full of women, promptly hit him in the head with a plastic toy. But that wasn’t the worst of it. As I grew up, Ben had a definite idea of what a son should be like–and, more often than not, I didn’t seem to fit that mold.
I was both overweight and introspective, neither athletic nor particularly social, and Ben had trouble understanding why that should have been so. What I wanted to do, or was good at doing, seldom seemed to be what he had in mind, at least in my memory. Yet, according to my brother Rick, Ben actually told him more than once that he was proud of me, though I don’t recall Dad saying that in my hearing when I was growing up. In fairness, though, I do remember that, late in his life, during our infrequent telephone calls, Ben might tell me that he loved me, to which I reciprocated as best I could.
Perhaps Ben gave up on me, or maybe I turned my back on him, or both. Whatever the cause(s) of our estrangement, I regret it still, especially because, in my brother Rick’s words, Ben Lamplugh “might not have always been the father we wanted, but he was the only father we had.” And Ben tried–God knows he tried!– to be a good father to us. I know that now. I only wish I had grasped it earlier. . . .
HAPPY FATHER’S DAY, BEN!
* * * * * *
For those interested in reading more of my reflections on history, here are links to my books on the subject:
[Note: Funny thing: I’ve been feeling trapped in “writer’s block” for the past year, even recording my supposed plight a couple of times in my journal. And yet. . . Looking back at the blog posts I’ve put up since June 1, 2020, the start of the eleventh year of “Retired But Not Shy,” maybe I’ve been exaggerating the whole “writer’s block” thing. Let me explain.]
* * * * *
When I launched this blog in June of 2010, I decided that one post a month would be my limit, and for the first few years that worked. Then, as my confidence grew that I could produce sufficient material to go beyond that initial goal, I began to build a collection of “future blog posts,” which enabled me, once I converted my notes into deathless prose, to put up two per month, between 2014 and 2018. Then, sanity reasserted itself, and I cut back to a single post a month, a plan I’ve followed pretty regularly.
When Year Eleven began, I had only four posts remaining in that “future file,” two on my favorite “Dead Georgian,” John Wereat; the others on factions and parties in Georgia from 1807 to 1845, which would complete my blog history of political party development in Georgia between the Revolutionary Era and the eve of the Civil War. I was concerned at the outset that I would use those four posts early on and be at a loss for the rest of the year, but fortunately that did not happen.
* * * * *
Year Eleven began June 1, 2020, with the annual “birthday post,” followed two weeks later by a Father’s Day post honoring my father, Ben Lamplugh, “Ben as Dad,” whose history had consumed large chunks of 2019-2020 at “Retired But Not Shy.” In July, my yearly homage to the nation’s birthday took a different form: rather than simply link readers to an earlier offering about how the Fourth was celebrated in Antebellum Georgia, I offered instead an edited transcript of an Independence Day address offered in the small Georgia town of Hawkinsville in 1838, along with commentary.
August’s post grew naturally out of the searing debate about the fate of Confederate monuments in the modern South in the era of “Black Lives Matter” that was roiling the state and the country. This essay was heavily informed by things I’d seen and heard on the Internet over the previous few months. The idea for the post came just when I needed it, and I was pleased with the result.
Last Fall, “Retired But Not Shy” devoted three posts [go here, here, and here] to a comparison and contrast of two books I’d read about the impact of the Vietnam War on American culture(s), published a generation apart, in 1985 and 2015. The series was an itch I had wanted to scratch since publishing “Growing Up with Vietnam,” in Year One, between December 2010 and March 2011. And, as was the case with the various posts put up in June, July, and August of 2020, the Vietnam Era essays were newly-written, not drawn from what remained of the “future posts” I’d been nurturing for several years.
I ended 2020 and opened 2021 with two posts on my historical “bro-mance” with Georgia’s John Wereat, whom I’d grown to know while in grad school and continued to find fascinating as I considered his role in the American Revolution and later in Georgia’s infamous Yazoo Land Fraud. The two-part Wereat series [go here and here] gave me a chance for closure–farewell, Mr. Wereat. . . .
The post in honor of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in January 2021 was a change from previous MLK entries, offering “A Prayer for Our Country” from the Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer—and an explication, by yours truly—against the backdrop of the tumultuous events between election day in November 2020 and the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
February’s post , an essay on the art of the book review, used two reviews of the same work, J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, one by my friend Joe Kitchens, the other mine. In March, I finally was able to post an appreciation of a great book—one of my favorites—Melton McLaurin’s memoir, Separate Pasts: Growing Up White in the Segregated South—which I had referenced numerous times over the years but had not found time to review.
Then, in April and May, Year Eleven drew to a close with the posting of the two-part study of factions and parties in Georgia between 1807 and 1845 that had been in the offing since I published a book on the topic in 2015. And these posts stripped my WordPress “dashboard” of the last completed “future posts” in the backlog.
* * * * *
So, does this mean that I’m in trouble? Not really, at least not yet. I already know that the June 2021 post, the first in Year Twelve, will be the annual “birthday post,” i.e., the one you’re reading now. And the July post will be yet another visit to the Fourth of July in Antebellum Georgia, using excerpts from a holiday oration published in the state press.
All of which means that, if Year Twelve of “Retired But Not Shy” is to flow as smoothly as the previous eleven years, I must return to my bulging folder of notes for “Future Blog Posts” and whip them into “post-able” shape, to carry the blog through at least May 2021. Please stay tuned. . . .
* * * * *
Next, we turn to a series of “top-ten” lists, statistics, provided, as always, by wordpress.com.
All time (2010-2021) [Excludes “Home Page/Archives” and “About”]:
[Note: The sudden popularity of this post in 2020-2021 took me aback. It concerns a purported survey of “American history,” The Dispossessed Majority, written by a white nationalist. In 1989, my older son was taking New Testament in summer school, when free copy of this volume in question arrived at our house–and at the homes of the other members of the rising senior class. My son’s Bible teacher asked if I would talk about the book, and I readily agreed. The Dispossessed Majority interpreted the nation’s history through the warped lenses of a white nationalism, racism, and anti-Semitism; thus, it had almost nothing to recommend it.
Yet, three decades later, those same ideas reappeared, during the latest phase of the “culture wars” in the U.S., and this led me to post my review, in February 2018. It was not until 2020, though, that the number of readers visiting that post really took off. And I wonder why. Were some visitors fans of the work? Were they just curious about the title? Ah, the joys of hosting an Internet blog. . . .]
[Note: This post’s recent burst of popularity also puzzled me, until I realized that the surge coincided with McTell’s birthday. Thank you, Blind Willie fans!]
Let me end by calling attention once again to the enduring popularity of this blog’s posts on the Blues. Six of the ten most popular posts since 2010 come from the “Blues Stories” page; the same percentage holds for the top ten posts in Year Eleven that come from years one through ten. In Year Eleven, however, there are no new Blues among the top ten, but that’s because I did not put up any new “Blues Stories” this past year. Gotcha! Oh, and thanks to all those Blues fans out there for finding this blog and continuing to visit it. I don’t know where I’d be without you!
* * * * * *
For those interested in reading more of my reflections on history, here are links to my books on the subject:
[Note: This is the second of two posts on the evolution of political parties in Georgia from 1807 to 1845 (for the first, go here).
Between 1831 and 1837, the tariff issue became increasingly divisive in Georgia. Some members of both the Troup and Clark parties were lured by the siren song of John C. Calhoun’s Nullification scheme. Yet, each party continued to operate as though nothing new had happened, until that blinkered vision proved impossible to sustain. The turning point came in December 1832, when President Andrew Jackson issued his Proclamation to the People of South Carolina, terming Nullification unconstitutional and its ultimate step, secession, as treason.
John C. Calhoun
Jackson’s Proclamation resounded like a thunderclap throughout the South; in Georgia, it sparked a political reorganization. The Clark and Troup parties dissolved, re-forming on the basis of support for, or opposition to, Nullification. Most Troupers, and some Clarkites, organized the State Rights Party, which favored Nullification; most Clarkites, along with some Troupers, opposed to the Carolina doctrine, formed the Union Party.]
President Andrew Jackson
* * * * *
The newly-organized parties slugged it out for political supremacy, with the Union Party in control over much of the next decade, primarily because it proved adept at “waving the bloody shirt” of support for the Union and President Jackson. Consequently, the State Rights Party began to distance itself from Nullification, though without much success at first. What ultimately helped resolve the issue was the formation in Congress of an anti-Jackson party, the Whigs.
Georgians opposed to Andrew Jackson, strongly influenced by Congressman (and later, Governor) George M. Troup’s doctrine of state rights and Calhoun’s theory of Nullification, initially were reluctant to adopt the Whig name because of the influence of strong Unionists like Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and former President John Quincy Adams among its members, but they still gravitated towards the new party because it opposed the President. Consequently, politics in Georgia continued to baffle uninitiated observers.
President Martin Van Buren
The State Rights Party recouped some of its fortunes after the Democrats nominated Martin Van Buren as Jackson’s successor in 1836, a decision that went to the heart of a key event in the history of the Clark party (which formed the core of the Union Party). In 1824, Van Buren had been campaign manager for Georgian William H. Crawford, the bitter rival of John Clark, when Crawford unsuccessfully challenged Adams, Calhoun, Clay, and Jackson for the Republican presidential nomination. Consequently, many former Clarkites in the Union Party, now Jacksonian Democrats in all but name, were reluctant to support Van Buren in 1836, even though he was Jackson’s hand-picked successor. Eventually, the State Rights Party backed Hugh Lawson White of Tennessee, one of the Whigs’ regional nominees. White carried Georgia with support from many “Clark Union men,” although Van Buren, supported in Georgia by the Union Party, won the presidency.
* * * * *
Elias Boudinot, Cherokee Editor
Georgia’s dealings with the Cherokees were increasingly strained in the 1830s. According to critics, Georgia opposed Nullification in response to the protective tariff but practiced it by refusing to recognize the jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court in cases involving Cherokee affairs, and there was some truth to that charge. Meanwhile, the Cherokee Phoenix, founded in 1828 by Elias Boudinot, presented the Cherokee case to a wider public. Boudinot’s eventual decision to support Cherokee removal, despite principal chief John Ross’s continuing opposition, led to his resignation as editor in the summer of 1832.
Trail of Tears
Boudinot’s successor, Ross’s brother-in-law Elijah Hicks, enlisted the Phoenix for Whig presidential candidate Henry Clay in 1832, in a final, desperate effort to block Cherokee removal, but to no avail. The Phoenix folded in May 1834, and the so-called “Treaty Party,” including Boudinot, Major Ridge, and John Ridge, signed the Treaty of New Echota in December 1835. The “Trail of Tears” in 1838 put paid to the issue, and white Georgians at last controlled all the former Native American lands within the state’s boundaries.
* * * * *
During the 1820s and 1830s, Georgia congressmen became ever more defensive about attacks on slavery, especially those launched from the Northeast, home of the dreaded Abolitionists. The situation was further complicated by publication of David Walker’s Appeal (and its role in the ouster of Elijah Burritt as editor of the Milledgeville Statesman & Patriot, which was succeeded by the Federal Union as the leading organ for the Clark/Union Party); and by the Nat Turner revolt in August 1831. Georgia congressmen became favorite targets of Massachusetts Representative (and former President) John Quincy Adams and his abettors, who fought to secure repeal of the hated Gag Rule. Like many southerners, Georgians saw attacks on slavery hidden in every political disagreement, from the protective tariff to the annexation of Texas, and efforts to mollify them inevitably failed.
In the late 1830s, the Union Party nearly imploded over Federal Union editor John Cuthbert’s attack on Georgia’s Central Bank, whose board was chaired by Tomlinson Fort, the wizard behind the curtain of the Union Party and owner of the Federal Union. Ultimately, this vendetta cost Cuthbert his post at the Union, but before he left Georgia he repaid the Union Party’s leadership in spades, publicly supporting the State Rights Party’s George Gilmer in the 1837 gubernatorial election, which was won by Gilmer.
Mark Anthony Cooper, State Rights Democrat
Thereafter, the Union Party evolved into the Democratic Party, while most members of the State Rights Party, eventually joined by a few disgruntled Union Democrats, embraced the Whig label, though with varying degrees of enthusiasm. The Georgia Democracy was increasingly influenced by Troup’s doctrine of state rights, aided by the migration to its ranks of former State Rights/Whig Party members Mark Cooper, Walter Colquitt, and Edward Black, who claimed to be so steeped in the principles of state rights that they could stomach neither Whig policies nor their presidential candidate in 1840, William Henry Harrison. The Democrats welcomed them with open arms, and Cooper, Colquitt, and Black soon acceded to prominent positions in the party hierarchy, much to the chagrin of some long-time members.
The irony was striking: Georgia Whigs had evolved out of the anti-Jackson State Rights Party yet, in the end, defended the Union; Georgia Democrats, whose party had developed from the pro-Jackson, anti-Nullification Union Party, became ardent champions of state rights in the 1840s. Once again, outside observers trying to understand Georgia’s party politics scratched their heads in stupefied wonder.
John M. Berrien, Georgia political chameleon
The pull of state rights and Nullification became so pervasive among Georgia Democrats that most of their editors worked for John C. Calhoun’s nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate in 1844. Whigs, on the other hand, although reminding voters of their State Rights Party roots and their continuing belief in that party’s doctrines, began to speak in terms of what was good for the nation as a whole rather than for the South or Georgia. Even John Berrien, who had boxed the political compass from Federalism to the Democracy (including a post in Andrew Jackson’s Cabinet), State Rights, and finally, the Whig Party, began to sound like a national statesman compared to increasingly angry, provincial state rights Democrats like Cooper, Colquitt, and Black, and later, Absalom Chappell.
* * * * *
One of the most important aspects of political party development in Georgia in the first decades of the nineteenth century was the spread of newspapers and the work of skilled editors in setting the political agenda, ushering in another era of bitter partisan journalism. No longer were editors merely artisans skilled in setting type; most were attorneys by training, adept at interpreting current events through the prism of ideology, and supported by increasingly sophisticated organizations. They played active roles in party affairs, developing campaign strategy, participating in public meetings and debates, occasionally even running for office themselves.
Most often, however, it was the steady stream of editorials explaining the political world through the lenses of partisanship that made local editors indispensable. In Milledgeville, Seaton Grantland founded two papers, the Georgia Journal and the Southern Recorder, which, over time, gravitated from the Crawford/Troup party to the Whigs. Elijah Burritt created the Statesman & Patriot for John Clark, and, after Burritt’s disgrace and flight from the state, John G. Polhill, in conjunction with John A. Cuthbert, established the Federal Union to echo the views of the Clark faction of the Union Party. Thomas Haynes moved the Standard of Union from Sparta to the capital, where it became the mouthpiece of Troup Union men.
Michael Kappel was instrumental in setting up pro-Clark papers in Milledgeville and Savannah. Myron Bartlett founded the Macon Telegraph and made it successively the voice of the Clark, Union, and Democratic parties in middle Georgia, while his peripatetic brother, Cosam Bartlett, had a hand in founding Clark, Union, and Democratic papers in Milledgeville, Macon, Columbus, and Savannah. Albon Chase steered the Athens Southern Banner from the Troup party to the Union party during the Nullification Crisis, and to the Democracy thereafter. In Augusta, P.C. Guieu made the Constitutionalist the staunch Union/Democratic voice of the upcountry, despite angry protestations from his neighbor, Augustus Longstreet, at the State Rights’ Sentinel. The voice of the State Rights/Whig Party in Columbus, the Enquirer, continually struggling for its financial life, was kept afloat thanks to energetic, articulate editors like R.T. Marks, Samuel Flournoy, and James Calhoun, as well as their frequently harried financial backers.
During the presidential election campaign of 1840, each party published a separate newspaper dedicated to its presidential standard-bearer. And, in 1844, when the staunchly pro-Van Buren Macon Telegraph refused to join the Milledgeville Federal Union in singing the praises of John C. Calhoun, the Carolinian’s middle Georgia supporters bankrolled the establishment in Macon of the American Democrat.
Political organizations also became tighter. Each party gathered in the capital when the legislature met, and later in Athens at the state college graduation, to hash out pressing issues and nominate candidates. In response to the political excitement of the late 1830s and early 1840s, parties emphasized personal contacts between candidates and the electorate through various “public discussions,” debates, meetings, and conventions.
Even if those contacts were sometimes more apparent than real, the net result was that voters were energized and trooped to the polls in large numbers. Both parties also replicated tactics originally developed by the Whigs in 1840 to attract voters: parades, festive meals, drinking parties, “liberty poles,” special election-season newspapers; you name it, one or both of Georgia’s parties trotted it out, beginning in 1840.
* * * * *
In the decades after James Jackson’s death (1806), in other words, Georgia politics evolved from a personal operation to one based more on issues, from “men to measures,” with the rise of Nullification the catalyst for the establishment of the State Rights and Union parties. The final steps came between 1843 and 1845: another political reorganization produced two parties that mirrored, at last, those on the national level. The 1844 presidential campaign sparked impressive efforts by both parties to attract voters, this time without confusion or evasion about party names, although some uncertainty about party principles remained. This movement climaxed in 1845, when each gubernatorial nominee ran as a candidate of one of the national parties, with no ifs, ands, or buts.
By the end of 1845, then, political parties in Georgia finally had adopted national party names as their own and begun to reshape their principles accordingly. Georgia politicians had been declaiming for decades that their supporters adhered to “principles, not men,” but this became a reality only because of the Nullification Crisis. Moreover, which men believed what principles was not always clear, especially on Nullification. Eponymous labels (Troup/Clark), those indicating support for a key issue (State Rights/Union), and those combining the two (Troup Union/Troup Nullifiers, Clark Union/Clark Nullifiers) became things of the past. After more than half a century on the periphery of political developments in the United States, Georgia was, at long last, floating in the mainstream.
* * * * *
Unlike modern historians, antebellum Georgians could not know what would happen later, cataclysmic events like the Compromise of 1850, for example, and how that would affect political parties in the state. Perhaps it’s just as well. The effort in Georgia to support the Compromise of 1850 would lead to yet another party reorganization, with the Whigs and Democrats breaking up and reforming into the Constitutional-Union (pro-Compromise) party and the Southern Rights (anti-Compromise) party.
In the end, the Constitutional-Union party triumphed: Georgia supported the Compromise, but warned the nation that the state considered the Compromise the “final solution” to the question of the expansion of slavery. And yet, the efforts of Howell Cobb, the leader of the Constitutional-Union party, to drag Union Whigs into the ranks of a moderate Democratic Party in the wake of the Compromise, failed. According to a veteran Democratic operative, this was because party names meant everything in Georgia politics by that point. Former Whigs who supported the Union would willingly have joined a permanent Constitutional-Union party, but were unwilling to follow Howell Cobb into the national Democratic Party
By 1845, though, Georgia’s political parties finally bore the names of the national ones, even if their principles made less than perfect sense in historical context, their enmities remained “rancorous,” and their partialities “blind.” Hezekiah Niles would have been proud.
[Note: The author apologizes for the sweeping nature of this two-part post, but, since they summarize Rancorous Enmities and Blind Partialities: Factions and Parties in Georgia, 1807-1845, in four thousand words, that is perhaps to be expected. Anyone interested in learning more about the events, individuals, and (especially) the “hairy-dog stories” treated in these posts, please check out the book (see below).]
* * * * * *
For those interested in reading more of my reflections on history, here are links to several books on the subject:
Retired But Not Shy 