Civil War Archives - Page 2 of 3

US Survey Course: Civil War (1861-1865)

During the summer of 2016, we will be bringing together our previously published articles, book reviews, and podcasts on key themes and periods in the history of the USA. Each grouping is designed to correspond to the core areas of the US History Survey Courses taken by undergraduate students at the University of Texas at Austin.

Starting Points:

We start with Marc William-Palen’s discussion of the Causes of the Civil War.

Next, we delve into a more detailed case study as Jacqueline Jones explores the Civil War in Savannah.

Charley Binkow explore’s George Mason University’s Virginia Civil War Archive, highlighting the portrayal of the Civil War in Harper’s Weekly, one of the authoritative voices in news, both in the North and the South.

And on 15 Minute History we have: Causes of the U.S. Civil War part 1 and part 2:

In the century and a half since the war’s end, historians, politicians, and laypeople have debated the causes of the U.S. Civil War: what truly led the Union to break up and turn on itself? And, even though it seems like the obvious answer, does a struggle over the future of slavery really explain why the south seceded, and why a protracted military struggle followed? Can any one explanation do so satisfactorily?

Historian George B Forgie has been researching this question for years. In this two-part podcast, he’ll walk us through five common–and yet unsatisfying–explanations for the most traumatic event in American history.

Recommended Books and Films on the Civil War:

Mark Battjes discusses Ulysses S. Grant’s Personal Memoirs (Barnes and Noble, 2003)

And, H. W. Brands recommends more reading on Ulysses S. Grant: memoirs, biographies, histories.

Nicholas Roland offers historical perspectives on Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012).

Kristie Flannery reviews Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War, by Tony Horwitz (Pantheon, 1999)

Finally, George Forgie recommends seven Civil War Classics.

Texas & The Civil War:

Nicholas Roland explores the experiences of Texans fighting in the battle of Antietam.

Nakia Parker follows the fascinating experiences of the Texans who moved to Brazil after the defeat of the Confederacy.

Two graduate students discuss intriguing Civil War sources found in the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin:

Conflict in the Confederacy: William Williston Heartsill’s diary, by Josh Urich.
The Curious Life of General Jackson’s Horse’s Hair, by Josh Urich
A Texas Ranger and the Letter of the Law, by Nathan Jennings

The Legacy of the Civil War:

Nicholas Roland remembers the Unknown Soldiers of the post-Civil War period buried in Austin’s Oakwood Cemetery and the story of Milton Holland, a mixed race native of Texas who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Civil War battle of Chaffin’s Farm.

And finally, our editor Joan Neuberger compiled some recommended readings on On Flags, Monuments, and Historical Myths

Reconstruction in Austin: The Unknown Soldiers

By Nicholas Roland

Seven marble head stones lie along a chain link fence in the Old Grounds of Austin’s historic Oakwood Cemetery. Their inscriptions read simply “U.S. Soldier.” These graves are Austin’s own unknown soldiers, men whose identities were lost over time and whose existence is mostly forgotten in the bustling twenty-first century Texas capital. They are also some of the last tangible remnants of the United States Army’s occupation of Austin during the Reconstruction years, a period that is often overshadowed by the deadly four year struggle between North and South that preceded it.

The Seven 'Unknown Soldier' Gravestones. — The Seven ‘Unknown Soldier’ Gravestones. Courtesy of the author.

The recent sesquicentennial of the American Civil War occasioned an outpouring of scholarly commentary, public programming, and commemoration. No such effort will be made to recall the drama of Reconstruction, an effort that began while the Confederacy still clung to life and ended in the aftermath of the 1876 presidential election. Historians today see the Civil War and Reconstruction not as discrete events, but as a critical period in a wider nineteenth-century struggle over issues of race, citizenship, individual rights, and the relationship between the state and federal governments and individual Americans.

Scholars debate exactly how much Reconstruction accomplished and whether more radical policies were either desirable or possible, but the long-term impact of Reconstruction legislation, especially the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th Amendments to the United States Constitution, is undeniable. On the ground level, the United States Army played a key role in supporting the operations of the Freedmen’s Bureau and in protecting white unionists and the formerly enslaved from the wrath of defeated Confederates. The seven men who lie in Oakwood Cemetery today took part in the struggle of Reconstruction in Texas, a struggle that in many ways was simply a continuation of the American Civil War.

Gravestone of an 'Unknown Soldier'. Courtesy of the author. — Gravestone of an ‘Unknown Soldier’. Courtesy of the author.

Emancipation and Reconstruction arrived in Texas on June 19, 1865 in the form of the Union Army. Within weeks, Union forces entered the state from several directions and proceeded to station troops in the most heavily populated areas. Austin was occupied on July 26, making it the last Confederate state capitol to fall to Union forces. Volunteer units, who made up the vast majority of the Union Army during the war, were the first to garrison Austin. The Second Wisconsin, First Iowa, and Seventh Indiana Cavalry regiments, under the command of General George A. Custer, camped on the northern outskirts of town in the fall of 1865.[1] As early as November 1865 the volunteer forces were being mustered out of the service and in 1866 they were replaced by Regular Army units. Although troops began to be sent to Texas’ western frontier in the fall of 1866, others remained in Austin and other portions of the eastern half of the state to maintain order and combat rampant violence aimed at suppressing the interracial political coalition represented by the fledgling Texas Republican party. The United States Army maintained at least a small garrison in Austin until 1875.[2]

A recently published work on Oakwood Cemetery says that the men who are buried there today were victims of a cholera outbreak that took place among Custer’s troops, who were encamped along Shoal Creek. If they were members of Custer’s cavalry, they were veterans of the Civil War as well as participants in the Reconstruction occupation of Texas. Although newspaper reports from the time do not mention a cholera outbreak, the unit histories of the regiments stationed in Austin reveal that nearly 86 percent of the casualties they sustained during their service were from disease. Along with other casualties, the men are believed to have been buried on the grounds of the historic Neill-Cochran house, which was used as a hospital by the Army from the fall of 1865 until March 1867.[3] In the 1890s most of the bodies along Shoal Creek were supposedly exhumed and reinterred elsewhere, but the seven men were forgotten until a flood exposed their graves some time prior to 1911, at which point they were transferred to Oakwood Cemetery.[4]

The Neill Cochran House located near the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, United States. Photo taken October 2007 by Larry D. Moore. Via Wikipedia.

As Drew Gilpin Faust illustrates in This Republic of Suffering, the federal government faced a monumental task in attempting to locate and identify the Union dead in the years following the Civil War. Between 1865 and 1871 303,536 Union dead were relocated to national cemeteries, at a cost of over $4 million. Only 54 percent of the bodies were identified. One of the major obstacles confronting efforts to identify and move the Union dead to national cemeteries was the intransigence of former Confederates, who did not hesitate to remove headboards and otherwise desecrate Union graves. In contrast, African Americans in the South proved to be the best allies of federal investigators who labored to document and care for Union graves.[5] In fact, David W. Blight argues that the first Memorial Day commemoration took place in Charleston, South Carolina in 1865, when formerly enslaved Charlestonians held a memorial service for Union prisoners of war who had died while in captivity at a local race track.[6] The culture of commemoration established by Americans during the Reconstruction years continues in the modern Memorial Day holiday.

Were Austin’s unknown soldiers forgotten due to malice toward occupying US troops? On the one hand, Travis County had voted against secession in the 1861 referendum and many prominent unionists resided in Austin. Custer’s troops camped on land owned by Elisha M. Pease, a pre-war governor and moderate unionist who would serve again as governor under the military government established by the Reconstruction Acts in 1867. The owners of the Neill-Cochran home, S.M. Swenson and John Milton Swisher, were both unionists as well, although Swisher worked for the state of Texas during the war.[7] According to the records of the Texas State Cemetery, part of the cemetery was set aside during Reconstruction for burials of Army personnel, a move that hardly seems to indicate hostility toward the occupying soldiers. Sixty-two Reconstruction-era soldiers were eventually transferred from Austin to the San Antonio National Cemetery in the late nineteenth century.[8] The men buried in Oakwood may have simply been the victims of negligence or error.

On the other hand, although relations between Austinites and the occupying federal soldiers appear to have been generally peaceful, Amelia Barr recorded that the town was “practically in mourning” in the aftermath of Confederate defeat.[9] Libby Custer, who accompanied her husband to Austin, recalled that “it was hard for the citizens who had remained at home to realize that the war was over, and some were unwilling to believe there had ever been an emancipation proclamation. In the northern part of the State they were still buying and selling slaves.”[10] Most white Texans steadfastly opposed the Reconstruction program of advancing racial equality, often violently. In later years “Lost Cause” propaganda and the Dunning school of Reconstruction history would paint the Reconstruction period as a time of corruption, misrule, and tyranny. Ironically, a town that was known for its large unionist population during the secession crisis became dotted with Confederate memorials during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The Old Oakwood Cemetery Austin, Texas, United States. Via Wikipedia. — The Old Oakwood Cemetery Austin, Texas, United States. Photo taken January 2007 by Larry D. Moore. Via Wikipedia.

The physical space of Oakwood Cemetery illustrates the workings of Texas historical memory over time. Approximately twenty yards directly north of the unknown soldiers is a large obelisk dedicated by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1909 to General Tom Green, an officer in the Republic of Texas army and a Confederate general who was killed in action in 1864. Monuments to other individuals are scattered throughout the cemetery, some with Texas Historical Commission markers that tell their stories. In their midst, these seven marble headstones lie adjacent to Navasota Street, unknown and largely forgotten, with nothing to explain their significance to visitors. Although controversies over Confederate statuary and school names draw the most media attention in twenty-first century Austin, the long shadow of the Civil War and Reconstruction lingers in the city’s oldest cemetery, at once hidden and in plain sight.

Picture of an obelisk dedicated by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1909 to General Tom Green, an officer in the Republic of Texas army and a Confederate general who was killed in action in 1864. — Obelisk dedicated by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1909 to General Tom Green, an officer in the Republic of Texas army and a Confederate general who was killed in action in 1864. Courtesy of the author.

Notes:

[1] Austin Southern Intelligencer, October 26, 1865 and November 9, 1865.

[2] Thomas T. Smith, The Old Army in Texas: A Research Guide to the U.S. Army in Nineteenth-Century Texas (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 2000), 54, 104-114.

[3] Kenneth Hafertepe, Abner Cook: Master Builder on the Texas Frontier (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1992), 148.

[4] Save Austin Cemeteries, Austin’s Historic Oakwood Cemetery: Under the Shadow of the Texas Capitol (Austin: Save Austin Cemeteries, 2014), 73; email correspondence with Dale Flatt and Kay Boyd, May 23, 2016; Lorraine Barnes, “Only Stones Remain of US Soldiers,” The Austin Statesman, September 28, 1955; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Regiment_Iowa_Volunteer_Cavalry; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2nd_Regiment_Wisconsin_Volunteer_Cavalry; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_Regiment_Indiana_Cavalry.

[5] Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), 211-238.

[6] David W. Blight, “Forgetting Why We Remember,” May 29, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/opinion/30blight.html?version=meter+at+1&module=meter-Links&pgtype=article&contentId=&mediaId=&referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.davidwblight.com%2Fpublic-history%2F2015%2F5%2F26%2Frestoring-memoriam-to-memorial-day&priority=true&action=click&contentCollection=meter-links-click

[7] http://www.nchmuseum.org/about/; https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fsw20; https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fsw14; https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fpe08.

[8] Email from Jason Walker, May 25, 2016.

[9] Quote in David C. Humphrey, “A ‘Very Muddy and Conflicting’ View: The Civil War as Seen from Austin, Texas,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly (Jan. 1991): 412.

[10] Elizabeth B. Custer, Tenting on the Plains, Or, General Custer in Kansas and Texas (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994), 138.

On Flags, Monuments, and Historical Myths

by Joan Neuberger

In response to student demand and in the wake of decisions made elsewhere in the southern U.S. to remove Confederate flags, UT-Austin President Greg Fenves appointed a Task Force to consider the removal of monuments to Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders that occupy a central site on the UT-Austin Campus.

A graffiti-covered Confederate statue on the quad on the campus at UT Austin

Understanding history and separating historical analysis from historical myth is essential for any society. One of the many disturbing aspects of Dylann Roof’s murder of nine African Americans on June 17, is his justification of White supremacy on historical grounds. And one of the signs that we could be doing a better job as historians is the CNN poll that shows the majority of White Americans see the Confederate flag as a “symbol of southern pride” rather than a “symbol of racism.”

Over the next few weeks, Not Even Past will offer readers historical sources, readings, and commentary on these events. Last week, Mark Sheaves collected past articles devoted to the history of slavery and its legacy in the US and provided us with an annotated list.

Today we offer the historical analysis and commentary from journalists and historians primarily writing online. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more reading and news from the Task Force. (We will add to the list as relevant articles appear.)

First, “Causes Lost But Not Forgotten: George Washington Littlefield, Jefferson Davis and Confederate Memories at the University of Texas at Austin,” an article by Alexander Mendoza about the controversies that have dogged the statues since their inception.

“Monuments to Confederacy have their own History at Texas Capitol,” by Lauren McGaughy

Memorial plaque of the Children of the Confederacy Creed erected by the Texas Division of the Children of the Confederacy

Many southerners claim that Confederate flags and monuments are reflections of southern “heritage,” not racism. On the Nursing Clio blog, Sarah Handley-Cousins discusses the uses of heritage as a concept and a badge, “Heritage is Not History: Historians, Charleston, and the Confederate Flag.”

A 2011 Pew Research Center survey that showed that more people believe the Civil War was fought over states’ rights rather than over slavery.

In “Why Do People Believe Myths about the Confederacy? Because Our Textbooks and Monuments Are Wrong,” James W. Loewin addresses some of the ways southerners rewrote Civil War history in Texas and elsewhere.

To document the centrality of slavery to the reasons southern states went to war, Ta Nehisi-Coates wrote “What This Cruel War was Over,” arguing that “the meaning of the Confederate flag is best discerned in the words of those who bore it.”

(And in case you haven’t read Nehisi-Coates’ searing history of relentless White efforts to prevent Blacks from obtaining economic security, here it is: The Case for Reparations.)

Finally, Bruce Chadwick on one of the most pernicious, and successful, purveyors of myths about “the southern way of life,” D.W Griffiths’ Birth of a Nation, 100 years old this year.

Added July 8-9, 2015

On discussing the commemoration of the confederacy with students:
David C. Williard, “I don’t want my students to simply choose sides in a polemic between heritage and hate.”

It’s complicated. Not very, but a little.
Richard Fausset, “‘Complicated’ Support for Confederate Flag in White South.”

Added July 14, 2015
Many people argue that removing monuments is erasing history:
Alfred L. Brophy, “Why Northerners should Support Confederate Monuments“

Personal Memoirs, by Ulysses S. Grant (2003)

By Mark Battjes

April 2015 marks the sesquicentennial of the end of the U.S. Civil War. As we look back on that momentous event in U.S. history, we should take time to reconsider one of the war’s most important figures, Ulysses S. Grant. Most famous as a general, Grant’s life spans an important part of U.S. history. Moreover, Grant’s prose is clear and evocative, proving him to be a great writer,and the author of one of the finest examples of the military memoir.

Grant had resolved not to write his memoirs. However, nearing the end of his life, and with his family’s financial security in doubt, Grant put forth a tremendous effort to tell the story of his military service. The writing does not suffer from Grant’s apparent haste. Instead, the words spill forth from the page and propel the reader through a brief description of his early life, his education at West Point, and his service in the war with Mexico. Grant then embarks on a gripping account of the Civil War from his own perspective.

It is a perspective that differs from many military histories of the war. Grant served in the West during the early years of the conflict. There are no Bull Runs or Antietams here. Instead, Grant gives the reader an inside account of the siege of Vicksburg, a battle of tremendous importance to the Union’s ultimate victory, which is often obscured because it ended on the same day as that more famous battle in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

The Battle of Jackson, fought on May 14, 1863, was part of the Vicksburg Campaign.

Grant’s account also showcases his genius for war. Like his illustrious predecessor as war-hero-turned-president, George Washington, some military historians deride Grant as a poor tactical general, especially in comparison to his contemporary, Robert E. Lee. While this critique is accurate, insofar as Grant lost many battles, it ignores the far more important object of the general, which is to win the war. On this point, Grant has few equals. And how Grant won the war is most obvious in his description of what he calls the “Grand Campaign” of 1864-1865.

Battle of Missionary Ridge, 1863.

Grant recognized that between 1861 and 1863 the Union had not used its superior strength well, allowing the Confederate armies to survive. To correct this, Grant devised a coordinated series of movements and battles by the Union armies to defeat the Confederacy and end the war. The inclusion of the letters and telegrams that Grant sent to his commanders in the field.makes his description of the campaign and its planning evocative and revealing. These are brilliant: they are concise and precisely convey Grant’s intent for each action.

Grant’s memoirs also offer insights into the war beyond its military conduct. Throughout, he presents glimpses of the hardships imposed on the population of the Confederate states by the war that raged on their soil. He is aware of his culpability for this suffering, and, at times, made an effort to alleviate it. He also gives the reader his impressions of other figures, such as Lee, General William T. Sherman, and Abraham Lincoln. These are no doubt colored by the passage of years, but they are also blunt, yet nuanced.

The Peacemakers depicts Sherman, Grant, Lincoln, and Porter aboard the River Queen on March 27th & March 28th, 1865. White House copy of the lost 1868 painting.

The Peacemakers by George P.A. Healey depicts Sherman, Grant, Lincoln, and Porter aboard the River Queen on March 27th & March 28th, 1865. This is the White House copy of the lost 1868 painting.

Grant’s discussion of his relationship with Lincoln is fascinating. Much has been written decrying the interference of presidents in military operations, especially with regard to Vietnam. Grant’s memoirs offer a completely different viewpoint. He describes the many instances when he received direct communications from Lincoln about fighting the war, most of which were unsolicited. Rather than condemning these as interference, Grant shows that he understood his subordinate relationship to the president, and thus he vigorously obeyed the president’s orders.

Finally, Grant embodies the complicated feelings that the conflict aroused. He poignantly expresses the conflicting emotions he experienced during the negotiations with Lee for the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. He relates that, when the two commanders met near Appomattox Courthouse in April 1865, he was unsure of Lee’s feelings, but his own had passed from jubilation about the pending end of the war to sadness and depression. Grant did not want to rejoice over the surrender of his valiant foe, who had battled for his cause, “though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.”

The Room in the McLean House, at Appomattox C.H., in which Gen. Lee surrendered to Gen. Grant, 1865.

Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant with an introduction by Rob Paschall (Barnes and Noble, 2003)

Student Showcase – The Book that Started this Great War: Opening Eyes to Oppression One Page at a Time

Haley Miller
Waco High School
Individual Performance
Senior Division

Read Haley’s Process Paper

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was far more than just a novel–it was a dramatic literary attack on the immorality of slave holding. Over 300,000 Americans bought a copy in 1852 alone, making it one of the most widely-read abolitionist texts in American history.

In order to explain the abolitionist message of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Haley Miller decided to assume the dramatic role of Harriet Beecher Stowe and let her tell the tale. Haley talked about the inspiration behind this unique project and the process of performing as one of America’s most famous writers.

First edition printing of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 1952 (Wikipedia) — First edition printing of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” 1952 (Wikipedia)

Last year in my U.S. History class, I learned about Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a major event in the Abolitionist Movement. It shocked me that Lincoln described its author as “the little lady who wrote the book that started this great war!” I decided to read the novel over the summer to understand its impact on slavery. It truly touched me the same way it touched earlier readers upon its initial release.

Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852 (Gurney & Sons - Bowdoin College Museum of Art) — Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852 (Gurney & Sons – Bowdoin College Museum of Art)

I chose the individual performance category because I have enjoyed my past experiences in living history. The book’s author seemed to me the best person to tell its story. As I created my script, I decided to emphasize Stowe’s events that urged her to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the reaction of the public to the bestselling novel of the nineteenth century. My performance is set in the parlor of Stowe’s home on the 40^th anniversary of the book’s publishing, as if Stowe were responding to questions from reporters. Many of the statements I incorporated are from her letters. Since Stowe’s actions were motivated by her Christian beliefs, I used many biblical references to explain her thoughts.

A slave trading business in Atlanta, 1864 (Wikipedia)

The publishing of Uncle Tom’s Cabin fits the theme, “Rights and Responsibilities in History,” because it equated slaves with whites and spoke out against the Southern system of labor. Stowe explained that, as the Lord’s children, blacks deserve to have united families and to be treated as humans. Stowe believed that God was speaking through her with Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and that it was her Christian responsibility to expose the cruelty of the South. After reading the novel, many felt an obligation to join the Abolitionist Movement to save “Uncle Toms” throughout the United States and to give slaves the right to avoid oppression. It called Christians to put morals over monetary values because, as Galatians 3:28 states, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, nor is there male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Uncle Tom’s Cabin reaffirmed what our founding fathers wrote, that all men are created equal.

Catch up on Texas History Day:

The harsh world of migrant work during the Great Depression

The history behind one of New Orleans’s most iconic neighborhoods

And the story of Douglas MacArthur, right down to his corn cob pipe

The Many Histories of South Austin: The Old Sneed Mansion

by Dennis Fisher

You wouldn’t think much of the limestone walls hanging on for dear life as you walked along Bluff Springs to get to the grocery store or the bus stop. Not least because they are set back about thirty feet from the road and concealed by trees. I first heard something about the walls and the Sneed mansion they once supported while walking along the Onion Creek greenbelt in South Austin. “The mansion on the hill was built by slave labor,” a local told me.

I decided to explore for myself on a recent drizzly Sunday. The entire neighborhood, mostly apartment complexes, a few empty lots, and bus stops, has grown up around this small patch of land, which has been just barely “preserved” (given its dilapidated state) by city officials. Walking past the crumbling walls of the Sneed mansion, marked by graffiti and littered with plastic bottles, evokes not only Austin’s past but also a sense of loneliness.

A black and white 1936 photograph of the Sneed House still intact taken by the Historic American Buildings Survey

A 1936 photograph of the Sneed House still intact taken by the Historic American Buildings Survey (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Sebron Sneed Sr. was born in Kentucky in 1802. He spent his early years bouncing around—first in the Missouri militia in 1823 and later in Arkansas practicing law. He married Marinda Atkins of Tennessee in 1824 and they both ended up in Austin, Texas in 1848 after the conclusion of the War on Mexico, making a new home for themselves. They both joined the Pleasant Hill Baptist Church—which still stands today on William Cannon across IH-35. Sebron started the local Democratic Party chapter in 1857. It’s probably not too hard to discern what the Sneed family thought about Texas in the 1850s. Coming from the Appalachian borderlands into newly conquered territory they probably hoped to prosper in a land that would soon expell its Native inhabitants—Tonkawa, Apache, and Comanche peoples around here—and in a place where black slavery was firmly entrenched and outside of the reach of the troublesome former Mexican government as well as the current Federal one—up until 1861, that is, when Lincoln was elected to the presidency. Sebron Sneed Sr. owned 21 people as property in 1860. One of them, Nancy Jane, was purchased by Sneed as “the highest bidder…of a certain mulato girl” in Arkansas in 1848 just before he relocated to Texas. We have no idea what Nancy Jane, almost entirely lost to us in the historical record, must have thought, felt, and dreaded–torn from her relatives and brought to a strange land.

Daguerreotype of Marinda Atkins (1809-1878), wife of Sebron Sneed, ca. 1849-1850 in an ornate gold frame

Daguerreotype of Marinda Atkins (1809-1878), wife of Sebron Sneed, ca. 1849-1850 (Image courtesy of Southern Methodist University, Central University Libraries, DeGolyer Library)

The location chosen for Sneed’s mansion still makes good sense. It stands on a hill that lifts slightly to the west but then drops down to where IH-35 currently sits. The land gently slopes downward on all remaining sides. Close by on the north and east sides of the house wind small streams that gently make their way downhill. Limestone, soft and porous, is readily available in this area. All of south Texas (and extending down into Guatemala and Belize) was covered by a shallow sea some sixty million years ago, which left behind as its primary legacy a thick layer of limestone—great for building houses and pyramids as well as collecting and channeling water into natural wells, creeks, and aquifers.

Sneed made his money in the legal profession. His papers, located at the Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas, are full of promissory notes from clients. In 1860, he paid fifty dollars in “occupation taxes” as a lawyer. By looking at his tax receipts we find that he owned enslaved people, horses, cattle, and land in Del Valle (just east on Highway 290)—the numbers vary from year to year suggesting he sold people as well. In 1864, he paid his county taxes in kind with 545 bushels of corn. During the war he made money by selling two enslaved men—Peter and Isaac—to Confederate General Magruder for building fortifications at Galveston. If Sebron saw Texas as a promised land, his vision and future rested firmly on the foundation of white supremacy. Furthering that vision, Sneed opened his mansion in south Austin as a recruiting station at the outset of the Civil War and later as a convalescent home for returning wounded soldiers. Both he and his son fought in the war—he as a provost marshall and his son as a captain. Sebron Sr. would die in 1879, at the time engaged in “agricultural pursuits”—the records shed little light on this post-war aspect of his life. He would be buried in the adjoining family cemetery along with his wife, other family members, and “infant Sneed.” After the war, his son moved downtown to Colorado and 3rd and kept busy as a lawyer, acting Comptroller, and later as superintendent of Travis County schools.

Black and white photograph of the second floor fireplace of the Sneed House, 1936

Second floor fireplace of the Sneed House, 1936 (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Today echoes of that era linger in both small and not so subtle ways. Ranch owners along the Onion Creek greenbelt still regularly take their horses out along the trails and locals flock to McKinney Falls to play along the limestone and creeks that crisscross the area. Confederate flags still find a place at rallies at the capitol as well as on t-shirts and pickup trucks. But today south Austin at William Cannon and IH-35 looks very different. Anglo-Americans, African-Americans, Native-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Mexicans all call this place home. Hispanic Texans constitute the majority of enrolled students in a state that could swing Democratic in a decade or less in a country that has twice elected an African-American to be president. Looking at what remains of the Sneed mansion serves to remind us of the very different histories that have inhabited these places.

If you’d like to learn more about the Sneed family:

A 1982 issue of the Austin Genealogical Society which includes an 1860 letter from Sebron Sneed jr. to his wife

The Sneed House’s city zoning information

A guide to the Briscoe Center’s Sneed family papers

Honorable Mention of 2013 Essay Contest: Covered with Glory: The 26th North Carolina Infantry at Gettysburg by Rod Gragg (2000)

by Adrienne Morea

Harry Burgwyn was twenty-one years old when he led more than eight hundred soldiers of the 26th North Carolina Infantry into battle at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863. Two and a half days later, after two bloody assaults, fewer than one hundred remained fit for duty. According to some calculations, the 26th North Carolina “incurred the greatest casualties of any regiment at Gettysburg” (Gragg 210). Despite these losses, the 26th rebuilt itself and continued fighting for an additional twenty-one months.

This fascinating regiment is the subject of Rod Gragg’s Covered with Glory: The 26th North Carolina Infantry at Gettysburg. As the subtitle indicates, the majority of the book covers the Gettysburg campaign, but it is also an admirable history of the 26th North Carolina and its role in the American Civil War, from the regiment’s establishment in the summer of 1861 to its surrender at Appomattox and the postwar lives of its survivors.

This book is the story of the men and their regiment. By and large, it is not about politics, nor is it an argument about the causes or broad issues of the war. It is a narrative of the experiences of men and boys, in camp, on the march, and on the battlefield. Such a detailed, personal view can enhance anyone’s understanding of the monumental history involved.

Readers make the acquaintance of many Tar Heels, from privates to generals, who fought in or were closely associated with the 26th North Carolina. This regiment was remarkable for the youthfulness of its commanders, several of whom were college students before the war. Colonel Henry King Burgwyn Jr. had graduated from two

institutions of higher education before he was twenty. Major John Thomas Jones, twenty-two, had been a schoolmate of Burgwyn. Lieutenant Colonel John Randolph Lane turned twenty-eight the day after the fighting at Gettysburg ended. At thirty-four, Brigadier General James Johnston Pettigrew, who commanded the brigade that included the 26th, was already an accomplished scholar in several disciplines. The officers are important and engaging characters, but they are not the entire story. Readers also meet lowlier fellows such as Private Jimmie Moore, a farmer’s son who was fifteen when he enlisted and seventeen when he was wounded at Gettysburg, and Julius Lineback, a slight, observant musician of twenty-eight.

Gragg tells the tale with eloquence, with great affection for the men of the 26th, and with respect for their opponents in blue. Covered with Glory is a work of nonfiction, but it is also a fine piece of storytelling. Sixteen pages of images help to put faces on the people in the text.

We are now in the sesquicentennial year of the Gettysburg campaign. This is a fitting time to study the events and people of the Civil War. As Lane said in a postwar speech, the story of the men of the 26th does not belong only to North Carolina or to the South, but rather it is “the common heritage of the American nation” and represents “the high-water mark of what Americans have done and can do” (Gragg 245). If you are interested in the American Civil War, in nineteenth-century life, or in military history, you should read this book. If you are or ever have been a college student in your twenties, you should read this book.

Photo credits:

Unidentified Union soldier, 1860-1870 (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

And be sure to check out Kristopher Yingling’s winning submission to Not Even Past’s Spring Essay Contest.

A Historian Views Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012)

by Nicholas Roland

Steven Spielberg’s latest historical drama chronicles the 16th President’s final months and the struggle for passage of the 13th Amendment by the House of Representatives in 1865. Lincoln’s enduring popularity in both scholarly and popular circles means that this film will be subjected to intense scrutiny and debate by historians, movie reviewers, and culture warriors.

Fortunately, Lincoln is blessed with a remarkably accomplished cast. Daniel Day Lewis is Abraham Lincoln. Having supposedly read over 100 books on Lincoln in preparation for the role, he manages to convincingly replicate many aspects of Lincoln’s persona and physical aura. Lincoln’s purportedly high voice, his wry sense of humor and knack for storytelling, his slouched posture and awkward gait, and the overwhelming weariness incurred by the “fiery trial” of war all ring true in this portrayal. Mary Todd Lincoln (Sally Fields) is portrayed as a more or less sympathetic character, in accordance with more recent scholarship rejecting long-standing depictions of Mrs. Lincoln as a shrew, possibly suffering from a mental illness. Instead, Fields plays a First Lady who is grief stricken over the loss of her son Willie and weary from the stress of a wartime presidential marriage. During a scene at a White House reception, she draws on her social training as a daughter of the Kentucky planter elite to skillfully and acerbically defend herself and her husband against political critics. Secretary of State William H. Seward (David Strathairn) also appears as an important source of support for Lincoln. Seward cuts patronage deals with lame duck Democratic Congressmen in order to help secure the passage of the 13th Amendment and acts as a sort of political muse to Lincoln. Seward harangues and cajoles Lincoln on policy and political strategy but ultimately serves as a loyal ally in carrying out Lincoln’s intent, a depiction born out in the historical record. Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) is also a convincing secondary character, albeit with some historical problems. A leader of the Radical wing of the Republican Party, Stevens is accurately portrayed as an advocate of racial equality and a vehement opponent of secessionists. However, a scene revealing the purported relationship between Stevens and his African-American housekeeper risks conveying the sense that this relationship was the primary motivation for Stevens’ crusade for the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.

Despite the excellent performances turned in by the star-studded cast, Lincoln has a number of shortcomings from the historian’s point of view. Based on Doris Kearns-Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, the film is at times a taut political thriller and at times the inspirational story of the final abolition of American slavery. The choice to focus on the last few months of Lincoln’s presidency is appropriate given the ultimate outcome of the American Civil War: the defeat of the

Confederacy and the end of legal slavery. However, this narrow focus glosses over Lincoln’s famously ambiguous views on slavery and racial equality. Spielberg’s Lincoln appears committed to rapidly ending slavery and even suggests that suffrage might be extended to black men in the future. In his lifetime, Lincoln was consistently criticized by Radical Republicans and African-American leaders such as Frederick Douglass for his equivocation on slavery and lenient plans for Reconstruction. Lincoln seems to have held a lifelong commitment to the free-soil ideology that every man, white or black, has the right to earn for himself by the sweat of his brow. Despite this conviction, Lincoln repeatedly stated that he wished to preserve the Union, either with or without slavery. Lincoln viewed the Emancipation Proclamation and the enlistment of black troops as a wartime expedient to preserve the Union.

To its credit, Lincoln does make some references to contradictory statements Lincoln made earlier in his presidency about slavery. Despite this nod toward the complexity of Lincoln’s political career, Spielberg risks reviving the Great Emancipator myth. The best evidence suggests that Abraham Lincoln personally abhorred slavery as an institution while simultaneously denying the concept of racial equality. Some historians have argued that Lincoln’s personal beliefs underwent a significant change during the last year of the Civil War, and Lincoln did in fact suggest to the reconstructed government of Louisiana in 1864 that “very intelligent” black men and “those who have fought gallantly in our ranks” might be given access to the ballot box. As depicted by the film, during the 1864 Presidential campaign Lincoln threw his support behind passage of the 13th Amendment and was active in securing its passage in 1865. Nonetheless Lincoln never became a radical abolitionist like Thaddeus Stevens or an outright advocate of racial equality. Lincoln continued to put forth plans for the resettlement of freedmen to the Caribbean even after issuing the Emancipation Proclamation and possibly even after the passage of the 13th Amendment.

Too narrow a focus on the actions of Lincoln and other white politicians unfortunately downplays the role played by both enslaved and free African-Americans in the Civil War-era struggle for freedom. Black characters largely appear passive in Spielberg’s account. Kate Masur points out that White House servants Elizabeth Keckley and William Slade were deeply involved in the free black activist community of Washington, D.C. Instead of appearing as dynamic characters within the President’s household, they are relegated to cardboard roles as domestics. Keckley has one brief, earnest discussion with Lincoln, but cannot offer a vision of black life outside of slavery to the President. Frederick Douglass, who visited the White House during the time depicted in the film, does not appear at all. The most assertive black character in the movie is a soldier who confronts the President about past ill-treatment and future aspirations. Lincoln artfully deflects the soldier’s concerns and the scene ends with the soldier quoting the Gettysburg Address. The one-dimensional black characters in Lincoln are unrecognizable as depictions of African Americans during the Civil War. Early in the war, when Lincoln strenuously wished to avoid confronting slavery, black enslaved workers fled to federal lines and congregated around federal camps such as Fortress Monroe, Virginia. Congress passed the Confiscation Act of 1861 in reaction to this development, marking the first movement by the federal government to separate rebellious slaveholders from their enslaved workers. While Lincoln continued to insist that the war was a struggle to preserve the Union, African Americans did not wait for the Emancipation Proclamation to turn the war into much more than a sectional conflict. Slavery was destroyed as much by their individual actions as by the political workings of white politicians.

A number of smaller inaccuracies and stylistic issues can be pointed out. For example, Alexander H. Coffroth is depicted as a nervous Pennsylvania Democrat pressured into voting for the 13th Amendment. Coffroth actually served as a pallbearer at Lincoln’s funeral, indicating that he was more than a simple political pawn of the White House. In another scene supposedly taking place after the fall of Richmond and Petersburg, Lincoln solemnly rides through a horrific battlefield heaped with hundreds of bodies. A battlefield such as this would likely represent one of the worst instances of combat in the Civil War. Richmond and Petersburg fell primarily due to General Ulysses S. Grant’s maneuvering to cut Confederate supply lines rather than through bloody fighting on the scale Spielberg depicts. Lincoln did in fact visit Richmond after it had fallen and was greeted there by hundreds of jubilant freed slaves in the streets of the former Confederate capital. The chance to depict such a poignant scene is not taken up by the filmmakers in favor of a continued focus on the political and military struggle waged by white Americans.Perhaps most inexplicably, the movie does a poor job of identifying the various cabinet officials and Congressmen central to the plot. While this poses little obstacle to historians familiar with the time period, the average moviegoer is likely to be somewhat unsure of the exact role or importance of several characters. This is especially curious given the fact that obscure members of a Confederate peace delegation such as Confederate Senator R.M.T. Hunter and Assistant Secretary of War John A. Campbell are explicitly identified on screen.

Taken on the whole, Spielberg’s Lincoln is a masterful politician and a dynamic character, able to carefully mediate between his own evolving beliefs and the political realities of his age. This interpretation falls solidly in line with the mainstream of Lincoln scholarship. For an incredibly complex, sphinxlike figure such as Abraham Lincoln, perhaps we shouldn’t expect a more thorough interpretation from Hollywood.

***

You may also like:

Henry Wiencek’s NEP review of Eric Foner’s The Fiery Trial, which examines Lincoln’s changing views on race and slavery

Photo Credits:

Series of Thaddeus Stevens photographs by Matthew Brady, sometime between 1860 and 1865 (Image courtesy of Brady National Photographic Art Gallery)

Lydia Hamilton Smith, housekeeper and alleged common law wife of Thaddeus Stevens, photographed sometime prior to 1868 (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Mary Todd Lincoln, 1846-7 (Image courtesy of Library of Congress)

Lincoln depicted as The Great Emancipator in Thomas Ball’s statue, Lincoln Park, Washington, DC (Image courtesy of Library of Congress)

Promotional studio image of Abraham Lincoln (left) and Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln (right)

Images used under Fair Use Guidelines

Texans at Antietam: 150 Years Ago Today

by Nicholas Roland

By the early autumn of 1862, Americans were reconciled to the fact that the military struggle to determine the fate of the Union was going to be a long and bloody one. Intense fighting was reflected in lengthy casualty lists printed in newspapers, and the names of small towns and rural communities where battles took place became burned into American collective memory: Manassas, Shiloh, Malvern Hill. The grim task of burying fallen soldiers became almost routine as thousands of young men fell in battle and died from illnesses.

Black and white image of covered wagons crossing the stone bridge at Antietam

Then, on September 17, 1862, the cataclysmic one-day battle of Antietam (or Sharpsburg as the Confederates called it), took the staggering losses to shocking new heights. In a single day of fighting in western Maryland, there were nearly 23,000 casualties, making Antietam the bloodiest day of the entire war. Approximately 3,000 soldiers were killed outright, while thousands more would die in the coming days and weeks or suffer from debilitating injuries for the rest of their lives. In the aftermath, Alexander Gardner toured the battlefield and took a series of photographs. These photographs, the first ever taken of dead American soldiers, shocked the public when they were exhibited in New York.

Black and white image showing dead Confederate soldiers by a fence at the Hagerstown Turnpike after the Battle of Antietam — Confederate dead by a fence at the Hagerstown Turnpike, after the battle of Antietam

The sight of bloated corpses lying among the detritus of war brought the carnage to the home front in ways that newspaper reports, casualty lists, and funerals had not. The New York Times wrote of Gardner’s images (mistakenly attributed to Mathew Brady), “If he has not brought bodies and laid them in our door-yards and along streets, he has done something very like it…”

The battle of Antietam held particular significance for Texans. Over a thousand miles from their homes, the Confederate soldiers of Hood’s Texas Brigade would suffer the second-highest casualty rate of any unit during the Civil War. On the morning of September 17, the men of the First, Fourth, and Fifth Texas Infantry regiments were held in reserve and attempting to cook breakfast as the fighting opened. They arrived in the hamlet of Sharpsburg, Maryland at the end of several months of hard campaigning in Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Assigned to duty in Virginia early in the war, the Texans earned a reputation for hard fighting after battles at Seven Pines, the Seven Days battles, and the second battle of Manassas. Lee affectionately referred to the men of Hood’s Brigade as “my Texans.” Lee’s army had reversed Confederate fortunes in Virginia, defeating two Federal armies and completely clearing the Commonwealth of Federal forces. Lee’s fateful decision to invade Maryland brought his ragged and outnumbered army to a defensive position in the Maryland countryside opposite George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac.

The Texan’s breakfast was abruptly interrupted when the Federal army launched an assault on the Confederate left flank. Hood’s Brigade fell into formation and marched north, passing wounded and frightened Confederates streaming to the rear. Emerging from the woods in the vicinity of the Dunker Church, named for a German Baptist sect noted for its pacifism, the Texans were ordered forward in a counterattack. The Lone Star soldiers launched a ferocious assault through a cornfield, driving Federal units before them. The attack eventually foundered in the face of intense artillery and musket fire. The Texans stubbornly attempted to move forward, but massive casualties decimated their ranks. Eventually Hood’s Brigade was forced to withdraw under heavy fire. When the Texas Brigade regrouped and counted their losses, it was determined that over 550 of the brigade’s 850 soldiers had been killed, wounded, or captured. The First Texas Infantry, advancing the farthest of any unit in the brigade, suffered a casualty rate of 82% of the 226 men engaged in the battle. The “Ragged Old First” lost their regimental colors as well. Historian John Cannon reports that when a Federal soldier later in the battle picked them up, he found thirteen Texans lying dead within arm’s reach of the Lone Star flag. The First Texas’ casualty rate at Antietam was the second-highest of the Civil War on either side.

Ultimately, the Texan’s counterattack through the cornfield yielded a pyrrhic tactical victory for Confederate arms. Lee and McClellan clumsily traded blows for the rest of the day, and the Army of Northern Virginia avoided total destruction largely through the timidity of McClellan. The slow moving Federal general allowed Lee’s army to withdraw and declined to aggressively pursue the ragged Confederates. Lincoln, frustrated by McClellan’s blundering and refusal to reengage Lee, eventually removed McClellan from command. McClellan would later run unsuccessfully on the Democratic ticket against Lincoln in the crucial 1864 presidential election.

Black and white image of President Abraham Lincoln meeting with Union General McClellan and his officers outside a tent after the Battle of Antietam

Lincoln with McClellan after the Battle of Antietam

The battle of Antietam was a critical turning point in the Civil War. Although Union victory was not decisive, Lee’s repulse from Maryland was enough for Lincoln to issue the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. After Antietam the character of the Civil War would change from a limited struggle to preserve the Union to a total war against slavery. The future of thousands of enslaved Texans was therefore directly affected by the fighting in far off Maryland.

Historical documents allow us to see the tragic affect that Antietam and other battles had on individual families in Texas communities during the Civil War. Lieutenant James Waterhouse was killed in action at Antietam. A native of San Augustine, he was the son of wealthy planter and merchant Richard Waterhouse. The 1860 census lists Richard Waterhouse as owning real and personal property totaling $117,300, making him tremendously wealthy for the time. Both Waterhouse sons, Jack and James, served in the First Texas Infantry. Jack transferred from the unit prior to Antietam and appears to have survived the war. James’s death in battle, at age 20, is documented in his service records. The Confederate government later paid Richard Waterhouse $231, the remainder of James’s monthly pay owed him by the army. Tragedy would revisit the Waterhouse’s during the war. In the turmoil of wartime Texas, Richard Waterhouse was murdered and his store robbed on New Year’s Eve, 1863. The case was never solved.

While James Waterhouse’s family remained to mourn his death, Antietam claimed the lives of other young men who are perhaps only remembered in archives. In the 1860 census, Jacob Frank was listed as a 29 year old German immigrant living in Galveston. He was not married and gave his occupation as “Merchant”, although he did not own any property. A young Jewish man seeking opportunity in Texas, Frank joined the First Texas Infantry in the spring of 1862. He likely joined in anticipation of the imminent Conscription Act and to improve his economic and social status. Upon his enlistment in Houston on April 1, 1862, he received a $50 bounty from Confederate recruiting officer Lieutenant W.A. Bedell. On the morning of September 17, Jacob Frank was killed in the cornfield at Antietam. He left no property and no family behind. The American Civil War, staggering in the scope of its destruction, is illuminated through historical documents as the accumulation of thousands of personal tragedies.

***

You can see Jacob Frank’s $50 bounty certificate here.

All photographs by Alexander Gardner, via Wikimedia Commons

The Civil World: A Global “War Between States”

by Henry A. Wiencek

Can historians reinterpret the American Civil War as a global event? This question inspired Henry Wiencek, a first year doctoral student in history at the University of Texas at Austin, to create the website “The Civil World: A Global ‘War Between States.’”

A rendering of the naval battle between in the infamous CSS raider, Alabama, and the Union Keasarge.

Weincek designed the site to provide an “intellectual portal” for historians, students, and general interest readers alike to consult in order to learn about the economic, diplomatic, and social changes ushered in by the Civil War on the international stage. That the Civil War can be interpreted as an international event may come as a surprise to many readers. The conflict, after all, is often taught and thought of as a regional phenomenon: its origins, key players, events, and consequences are traditionally thought to be constrained within U.S. borders. Wiencek’s website tells a different story. Through its diverse collection of maps, newspaper clippings, and recent historical literature, “A Civil World” argues convincingly that the war’s international stage played a significant role in the war’s origins, trajectory, and eventual outcome.

(A Harper’s Weekly cartoon satirized the widespread fear that a post-bellum, pre-Reconstruction America will descend into a “Mexican” state of constant civil war.)

Abraham Lincoln as the “Federal Phoenix” in the British magazine Punch.

University of Texas at Austin – Department of History

(Professor: Jeremi Suri)

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