Research Exercise: Rumor at Arlington

Some blogs like to start things off with a bang, and this just may be the case with a new one, called civilwarhistorian.  For in only the second post on this blog, we find the following except from an 1863 Massachusetts newspaper, publishing the comments of a member of the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry about a visit to Arlington, the home of Robert E. Lee:

“At the cook house for the overseer’s family I noticed an octoroon, nearly white, with fine features. She told me that her mother, long since dead was a quadroon and Gen. Lee’s housekeeper at Arlington, and to the question, ‘Was your father a colored man?’ she answered without hesitation ‘No,–master’s my father.” And this father and master now leads an army, the sole purpose of which is to establish a government founded on an institution which enslaves his own children, making his own flesh and blood saleable property!”

Okay, folks … what do you make of this?  How would you go about finding out exactly what’s going on?

UPDATE:  Just in case you were wondering, our intrepid blogger, Colin Woodward, has also posted the answer to that question, an answer which you can encounter in the comments section below.  Tony Gunter and Andy Hall get a gold star.  I would have sent them a t-shirt from The History Channel, but the publicist who promised me some swag does not seem to have come through.

Research Exercise: The Wadsworth Letter

In the comments section Helga Ross makes reference to a debate over the authenticity of a letter purportedly written by Abraham Lincoln to James S. Wadsworth in early 1864. The letter’s text does not bear a date, but it must have been written between the beginning of 1864 and the Battle of the Wilderness, where Wadsworth was killed.

You desire to know, in the event of our complete success in the field, the same being followed by a loyal and cheerful submission on the part of the South, if universal amnesty should not be accompanied with universal suffrage.

Now, since you know my private inclinations as to what terms should be granted to the South in the contingency mentioned, I will here add, that if our success should thus be realized, followed by such desired results, I cannot see, if universal amnesty is granted, how, under the circumstances, I can avoid exacting in return universal suffrage, or, at least, suffrage on the basis of intelligence and military service.

How to better the condition of the colored race has long been a study which has attracted my serious and careful attention; hence I think I am clear and decided as to what course I shall pursue in the premises, regarding it a religious duty, as the nation’s guardian of these people, who have so heroically vindicated their manhood on the battle-field, where, in assisting to save the life of the Republic, they have demonstrated in blood their right to the ballot, which is but the humane protection of the flag they have so fearlessly defended.

The restoration of the Rebel States to the Union must rest upon the principle of civil and political equality of the both races; and it must be sealed by general amnesty [1].

Annotation:

New York Tribune, September 26, 1865; Scribner’s Magazine, January, 1893. This extract was widely reprinted in newspapers from the source indicated in the Tribune as follows:

“The Southern Advocate of the 18th inst. says:

“The following extract, which has just been published, is from the late President Lincoln’s letter to Gen. Wadsworth, who fell in the battle of the Wilderness. The letter, which is of a private character, is to be sent to Gen. Wadsworth’s family.

‘”It shows that Mr. Lincoln, who desired the bestowal of the elective franchise upon the blacks, was also, at an early day, in favor of granting universal amnesty, which, for some strange and unaccountable reason, is still withheld from the South, notwithstanding it is known that it was his intention to grant, without any exception, a general pardon.

“‘His wishes, in this particular, the American people cannot afford to disregard. Congress will, no doubt, exact the right of suffrage for the blacks. Why universal amnesty should be withheld until that time, we are unable to see. This, certainly, was not Mr. Lincoln’s plan, whose intentions all parties should sacredly observe.

“‘The following is the extract referred to, in which Mr. Lincoln says: [extract as given above].’”

The Southern Advocate has not been located, and no other reference has been found to the original letter to Wadsworth. The contents of the excerpt is, however, closely in keeping with views expressed by Lincoln elsewhere (see Fragment, August 26, 1863, supra), and seems to be genuine. The date assigned is based upon the fact that General Wadsworthreturned from his tour of inspection of freedmen in the Mississippi Valley on December 3, 1863, and on the supposition that Lincoln’s letter would probably have been written some time thereafter, but in any case prior to May, 1864, since Wadsworthwas killed in the Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864.

[1]   This paragraph does not appear in the newspaper accounts, but is included in the article by Marquis de Chambrun in Scribner’s Magazine.

So runs the text and the annotation in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, volume 7, pages 101-2.

Your assignment is a simple one: is the letter authentic?

Take a Look Here …

… at this post by Andy Hall at Dead Confederates.  It’s a really interesting exercise on how one weighs evidence as one struggles to construct a narrative that tells us what happened.

In recent years memory studies, which rest on some of the same principles as the practice of deconstruction in literary studies, look at various accounts and determined what shaped those accounts.  These studies have been very valuable, yet I still say the hardest thing for a historian to do is to find out what happened in the first place.  That some people misunderstand what good historians do by claiming that it’s all a matter of pick and choose according to some predetermined agenda or ideology say this in part as a way to evade the real spadework of scholarship.

Take a look at Andy’s post and see what you make of the two accounts he presents.

Seeing What is Not There

Once in a while one should step back, reflect, and then pull things together.  Such is the case with several posts that have appeared here in the past few weeks.  Together they explore a common problem.

Frederick Douglass on Black Confederates, 1861: A Research Exercise

I happen to love research exercises.  Oh, I know, some of you are fascinated by shows such as History Detectives (a show I find “fascinating” for distinctly different reasons), and I’m sure many of you wish you could bring new things to light without, say, altering documents.  Here at Crossroads we want to encourage critical thinking and research, and so today we turn to yet another quote, this one from Frederick Douglass, who stated in Douglass’ Monthly in September 1861 the following:

It is now pretty well established, that there are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops, and do all that soldiers may to destroy the Federal Government and build up that of the traitors and rebels. There were such soldiers at Manassas, and they are probably there still. There is a Negro in the army as well as in the fence, and our Government is likely to find it out before the war comes to an end. That the Negroes are numerous in the rebel army, and do for that army its heaviest work, is beyond question. They have been the chief laborers upon those temporary defences in which the rebels have been able to mow down our men. Negroes helped to build the batteries at Charleston. They relieve their gentlemanly and military masters from the stiffening drudgery of the camp, and devote them to the nimble and dexterous use of arms. Rising above vulgar prejudice, the slaveholding rebel accepts the aid of the black man as readily as that of any other. If a bad cause can do this, why should a good cause be less wisely conducted?