This Republic of Suffering
Page 37
16. John W. Moore, Roster of North Carolina Troops in the War Between the States, Prepared by Order of the Legislature of 1881, 4 vols. (Raleigh, N.C.: Ash & Gatling, 1882), vol. 1, p. v. See, for Tennessee, John Berrien Lindsley, The Military Annals of Tennessee (Nashville, Tenn.: J. M. Lindsley & Co., 1886).
17. “Editorial Department,” Southern Historical Society Papers 1 ( January–June 1876): 39; “Confederate Losses During the War—Correspondence Between Dr. Joseph Jones and General Samuel Cooper,” Southern Historical Society Papers 7 ( June 1879): 289.
18. Frederick Phisterer, Statistical Record of the Armies of the United States (1883; rpt. New York: Castle, 2002); Fox, Regimental Losses; Thomas Livermore, Numbers and Losses in the Civil War in America (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1901); Frederick Dyer, A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion (1908; rpt. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1959). The 1959 reprint has an excellent introduction by Bell Irvin Wiley. See also the review of Dyer in American Historical Review 15 ( July 1910): 889–91.
19. Fox, Regimental Losses, p. 58.
20. Ibid., p. 1; William F. Fox, “The Chances of Being Hit in Battle,” Century Illustrated Magazine 36 (May 1888): 99.
21. Fox, Regimental Losses, pp. 58–59.
22. Ibid., pp. 58, 59, 61.
23. See www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/josephstall1137476.htm; Fox, Regimental Losses, p. 46.
24. Walt Whitman, Memoranda During the War (1875; rpt. Bedford, Mass.: Applewood Books, 1993), pp. 74, 73, 74, 75; Walt Whitman, “Reconciliation,” in Whitman, Civil War Poetry and Prose (New York: Dover, 1995) p. 25; Whitman, “As Toilsome I Wander’d Virginia’s Woods,” in Whitman, Civil War Poetry and Prose, p. 25; Whitman, Memoranda, p. 46. It seems possible that Whitman derived his numbers from a letter from Charles W. Folsom, brevet colonel and assistant quartermaster to Brevet Brigadier General A. J. Perry, U.S. Quartermaster, May 27, 1868, that introduced volume 16 of Roll of Honor: Names of Soldiers Who Died in Defence of the American Union, Interred in the National Cemeteries and Other Burial Places (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1868), p. viii. Folsom’s categories and numbers are very similar to Whitman’s.
25. For contemporary versions of “All Quiet,” see, for example “Editor’s Table,” Southern Literary Messenger 34 (September–October 1862): 589, and “Journal of the War,” DeBow’s Review 2 ( July 1866): 68–69.
26. “Only One Killed,” Harper’s Weekly, May 24, 1862, pp. 330–31; Lewis quoted in Robert V. Wells, Facing the “King of Terrors”: Death and Society in an American Community, 1750–1990 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 127.
27. See H. M. Wharton, War Songs and Poems of the Southern Confederacy (Philadelphia: John C. Winston, 1904), pp. 153–54, 131–32; “Only,” Harper’s Weekly, January 3, 1863; “One of Many,” Harper’s Weekly, April 16, 1864. “Only a Private Killed” is a refrain from a poem composed by H. L. Gordon and sent to Mrs. E. H. Ogden, November 12, 1861, GLC6559.01.038, Gilder Lehrman Collection, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, NYHS.
28. On Civil War sentimentality, see Alice Fahs, “The Sentimental Soldier,” in Fahs, The Imagined Civil War: Popular Literature of the North and South, 1861–1865 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), pp. 93–119, and Frances M. Clarke, “Sentimental Bonds: Suffering, Sacrifice and Benevolence in the Civil War North,” Ph.D. diss. ( Johns Hopkins University, 2001). On irony, see Claire Colebrook, Irony (New York: Routledge, 2004).
29. Fox, Regimental Losses, p. 574.
EPILOGUE
1. Walter Lowenfels, ed. and comp., Walt Whitman’s Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960), p. 15; Bierce quoted in Daniel Aaron, The Unwritten War: American Writers and the Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973), p. 183.
2. Bierce quoted in Roy Morris Jr., Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company (New York: Crown, 1996), p. 205; Sidney Lanier to Bayard Taylor, August 7, 1875, in Charles R. Anderson and Aubrey H. Starke, eds., Letters, 1874–1877, The Centennial Edition of the Works of Sidney Lanier (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1945), vol. 9, p. 230.
3. Susannah Hampton to Dear Sir, September 14, 1863, Philadelphia Agency, Hospital Directory Correspondence, vol. 2, box 597, U.S. Sanitary Commission Records, NYPL.
4. Melville quoted in Lee Rust Brown, “Introduction,” in Herman Melville, Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War: Civil War Poems (1866; rpt. New York: Da Capo Press, 1995), p. viii.
5. Lucy Rebecca Buck, Sad Earth, Sweet Heaven: The Diary of Lucy Rebecca Buck During the War Between the States (Birmingham, Ala.: Cornerstone, 1973), p. 50.
6. Frederick Douglass, “The Mission of the War,” in The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass (New York: International Publishers, 1950), vol. 3, p. 397.
7. E. B. Whitman, “Remarks on National Cemeteries,” in W. T. Sherman et al., The Army Reunion (Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co., 1869), p. 225; Herman Melville, “A Utilitarian View of the Monitor’s Fight,” in Battle-Pieces, p. 62.
8. Walt Whitman, “The Million Dead, Too, Summed Up,” Specimen Days (1882; rpt. Boston: David Godine, 1971), p. 59.
9. William McKinley, “Speech Before the Legislature in Joint Assembly at the State Capitol, Atlanta, Georgia, December 14, 1898,” Speeches and Addresses of William McKinley from March 1, 1897 to May 30, 1900 (New York: Doubleday & McClure, 1900), p. 159.
10. Douglass quoted in David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass’ Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), p. 238; Ambrose Bierce, “To E. S. Salomon” [1903], in Bierce, Phantoms of a Blood-Stained Period: The Complete Civil War Writings of Ambrose Bierce, ed. Russell Duncan and David J. Klooster (Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002), p. 334.
11. Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Soldier’s Faith: An Address Delivered on Memorial Day, May 30, 1895, at a Meeting Called by the Graduating Class of Harvard University (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1895). Holmes had given an earlier version of this speech in Keene, New Hampshire, on Memorial Day 1884. See harvard regiment.org/memorial.htm.
Acknowledgments
The idea for this book grew out of my earlier work on women of the slaveholding South and crystallized as I recognized that their perceptions of the war were rooted in its terrible harvest of death. I have been engaged in this project for well over a decade, partly because I have undertaken other responsibilities alongside it, but partly because I found the subject so compelling and wanted to do it full justice. If I have in any way succeeded in this purpose, it is because of the many friends, colleagues, and even strangers who have helped. I want first to thank those who read and commented on the whole manuscript, saving me from errors and offering me invaluable perspective on larger conceptual questions: David Blight, Ann Braude, Gary Gallagher, Tony Horwitz, Jennifer Leaning, Stephanie McCurry, James McPherson, Luke Menand, Charles Rosenberg, and Jessica Rosenberg. Others read particular chapters in their areas of expertise, found library materials, guided me to and through manuscript collections, shared treasures encountered in their own research, worked as research assistants, aided in preparation of the manuscript, or contributed in countless other ways. I am deeply indebted to Michael Bernath, Homi Bhabha, Tracy Blanchard, Beth Brady, Gabor Boritt, Tom Coens, Lara Cohen, Gretchen Condran, John Coski, Yonatan Eyal, Henry Fulmer, Jesse Goldstine, James Green, Jenessa Hoffman, Kathryn Johnson, Andrew Kinney, James Kloppenberg, Jeremy Knowles, Lisa Laskin, Paul LeClerc, Millington Lockwood, Chandra Manning, Sandra Markham, Stewart Meyer, Reid Mitchell, Margot Minardi, Lien-Hang Nguyen, Charlie Ornstein, Amy Paradis, Katy Park, Michael Parrish, Charlene Peacock, Trevor Plante, Frances Pollard, George Rable, James Robertson Jr., Neil Rudenstine, Barbara Savage, Elana Harris Schanzer, Kay Shelemay, Theda Skocpol, Susan Stewart, Allen Stokes, Steven Stowe, Julie Tomback, Helen Vendler, and Ann Wilson. My gratitude to Jane Garrett for patience and faith.
My thanks to Louise Richardson for holding the fort at Radcliffe while I took a sabbatical to write; to Susan Johnson and Anne B
rown for running my life; to Janine Bestine and Peggy Chan for running my computers; and to Lars Madsen for taking on so much so well at the last minute. Kennie Lyman did the near impossible in making sure the manuscript was ready to go to press on time. I have been privileged to enjoy the generosity first of the University of Pennsylvania and then of Harvard University in support of my work as a historian, and I have been inspired for the past six years by the intellectual riches of the Radcliffe Institute. I am the grateful beneficiary of the treasures of the many manuscript repositories cited in the notes, and I thank the libraries and museums that have permitted me to use quotations and illustrations. Parts of this book appeared in slightly different form in the Journal of Southern History, the Journal of Military History, and Southern Cultures. In quoting primary materials, I have retained original, often rather creative, spellings without inserting the intrusive sic.
Charles Rosenberg and Jessica Rosenberg are great editors and critics. But they know that is the least of it. Thanks to them for believing in this project for so long and for living with my fascination with death.
Cambridge, January 2007
Illustration Credits
Front Matter “The True Defenders of the Constitution.” Harper’s Weekly, November 11, 1865. The Library Company of Philadelphia.
Front Matter “Confederate Dead at Antietam, September 1862.” Photograph by Alexander Gardner. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-01090.
Chapter 1 Milton Wallen, Company C, First Kentucky Cavalry, in a prison hospital. “Dying of Gangrene.” Watercolor by Edward Stauch. Courtesy of the National Museum of Health and Medicine, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Washington, D.C., CWMI 98C.
Chapter 1 Amos Humiston dies holding an ambrotype of his three children. “An Incident at Gettysburg.” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, January 2, 1864. Widener Library, Harvard College Library, XPS 527 PF.
Chapter 1 “The Letter Home.” Charcoal and graphite drawing by Eastman Johnson, 1867. Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The Julia B. Bigelow Fund.
Chapter 1 “The Execution of the Deserter William Johnson.” Harper’s Weekly, December 28, 1861. The Library Company of Philadelphia.
Chapter 2 “The Sixth Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteers Firing into the People, Baltimore, April, 1861.” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, April 30, 1861. Widener Library, Harvard College Library, XPS 527 PF.
Chapter 2 “The Army of the Potomac—A Sharp-Shooter on Picket Duty.” Engraving from an oil painting by Winslow Homer. Harper’s Weekly, November 15, 1862. The Library Company of Philadelphia.
Chapter 2 “The War in Tennessee—Rebel Massacre of the Union Troops After the Surrender at Fort Pillow, April 12.” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, May 7, 1864. Widener Library, Harvard College Library, XPS 527 PF.
Chapter 2 Image of an “Unidentified Sergeant, U.S. Colored Troops,” in the Picture File Collection (ID Number M1371) located in the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University.
Chapter 2 “Funeral of the Late Captain Cailloux.” Harper’s Weekly, August 29, 1863. Widener Library, Harvard College Library, P 207.6 F.
Chapter 3 “Soldiers’ Graves near General Hospital, City Point, Virginia.” Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-01872.
Chapter 3 “A Burial Party After the Battle of Antietam.” Photograph by Alexander Gardner. Library of Congress. Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-01098.
Chapter 3 “Antietam. Bodies of Confederate Dead Gathered for Burial.” Photograph by Alexander Gardner. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-01094.
Chapter 3 “Burying the Dead Under a Flag of Truce, Petersburg, 1864.” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, September 3, 1864. Widener Library, Harvard College Library, XPS 527 PF.
Chapter 3 “Dead Confederate Soldiers Collected for Burial. Spotsylvania, May 1864.” Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-USZ62-104044.
Chapter 3 “A Burial Trench at Gettysburg.” Photograph by Timothy H. O’Sullivan. Library of Congress. Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-00843.
Chapter 3 “Rebel Soldiers After Battle ‘Peeling’ (i.e. Stripping) the Fallen Union Soldiers.” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, February 13, 1864. Widener Library, Harvard College Library, XPS 527 PF.
Chapter 3 “Burial of Federal Dead. Fredericksburg, 1864.” Photograph by Timothy H. O’Sullivan. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-01840.
Chapter 3 “A Contrast: Federal Buried, Confederate Unburied, Where They Fell on the Battlefield of Antietam.” Caption and photograph by Alexander Gardner. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-01086.
Chapter 3 Sketch by Alfred R. Waud. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Drawing Collection, LC-USZ62-15118.
Chapter 3 The Burial of Latané, 1864. Painting by William D. Washington. Courtesy of The Johnson Collection.
Chapter 3 “Maryland and Pennsylvania Farmers Visiting the Battlefield of Antietam While the National Troops Were Burying the Dead and Carrying Off the Wounded.” From a sketch by F. H. Schell. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, October 18, 1862. Widener Library, Harvard College Library, XPS 527 PF.
Chapter 3 “Transportation of the Dead!” Gettysburg: H. J. Stahle, 1863. Broadside. The Library Company of Philadelphia.
Chapter 3 Business card for undertaker Lewis Ernde, Hagerstown, Maryland. Civil War Miscellanies (McA 5786.F), McAllister Collection, The Library Company of Philadelphia.
Chapter 3 “Embalming Surgeon at Work on Soldier’s Body.” Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs Division, LC-DIG-cwpb-01887.
Chapter 3 “Dr. Bunnell’s Embalming Establishment in the Field (Army of the James).” Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-01886.
Chapter 4 Detail from “News of the War.” Harper’s Weekly, June 14, 1862. The Library Company of Philadelphia.
Chapter 4 “The United States Christian Commission Office at 8th and H Streets, Washington, D.C., 1865.” Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-04165.
Chapter 4 “Nurses and Officers of the United States Sanitary Commission at Fredericksburg, Virginia, During the Wilderness Campaign, 1864.” Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-01196.
Chapter 4 Telegram from William Drayton Rutherford to Sallie Fair Rutherford, July 6, 1862. Manuscripts W. D. Rutherford Papers. Courtesy of South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia.
Chapter 4 Advertisement for soldiers’ identification badges. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, September 10, 1864. Widener Library, Harvard College Library, XPS 527 PF.
Chapter 4 “I am Capt O W Holmes, 20th Mass V, Son of Oliver Wendell Holmes, MD, Boston.” Note written by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Courtesy of Special Collections Department, Harvard Law School Library, Harvard University.
Chapter 4 Detail from “News of the War.” Harper’s Weekly, June 14, 1862. The Library Company of Philadelphia.
Chapter 4 “Ward K at Armory Square Hospital in Washington, D.C.” Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-04246.
Chapter 4 “An Unknown Soldier.” Harper’s Weekly, October 24, 1868. Widener Library, Harvard College Library, P 207.6 F.
Chapter 4 “Henry Clay Taylor.” Henry Clay Taylor Papers WHi-46641. Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.
Chapter 4 “Libby Prison, Richmond Virginia, April 1865.” Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-02898.
Chapter 5 “View of the Darlington Court-House and the Syca
more Tree Where Amy Spain, the Negro Slave, Was Hung.” Harper’s Weekly, September 30, 1865. Widener Library, Harvard College Library, P 207.6 F.
Chapter 5 John Saunders Palmer Jr. with his wife, Alice Ann Gaillard Palmer. From a copy, courtesy of South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia.
Chapter 5 Half-mourning dress of Varina Howell Davis. The Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia. Photography by Katherine Wetzel.
Chapter 5 “Women in Mourning, Cemetery in New Orleans.” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, April 25, 1863. Widener Library, Harvard College Library, XPS 527 PF.
Chapter 5 “View of the ‘Burnt District’, Richmond, Va.” Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-USZC4-4593.
Chapter 5 “Godey’s Fashions for June 1862.” Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine, June 1862. The Library Company of Philadelphia.
Chapter 5 “Women in Mourning at Stonewall Jackson’s Grave, circa 1866.” Courtesy of Virginia Military Institute Archives, Lexington.
Chapter 5 “President Lincoln’s Funeral—Citizens Viewing the Body at the City Hall, New York.” Harper’s Weekly, May 6, 1865. Widener Library, Harvard College Library, P 207.6 F.
Chapter 5 Henry Ingersoll Bowditch at the time of the Civil War. Courtesy of Harvard University Archives, HUP Bowditch, Henry (1).
Chapter 6 “The Dying Soldier.” Song sheet (New York: Charles Magnus, n.d.), Wolf 5486, American Song Sheet Collection, The Library Company of Philadelphia.
Chapter 6 “Battle-field of Gaines Mill, Virginia.” Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-USZ62-106283.