From John Hennessy:

 

This weekend, the Fredericksburg Area Museum unveils its new exhibit, Fredericksburg Remembers 9/11. You can read about the new exhibit here. The looming anniversary inspires a reposting of a 9/11-related post from a while back:

 

It seems to me that in the aftermath of national trauma, we as a nation (consciously or unconsciously) have accorded the rights of memory to a certain group or groups. We have seen that most vividly in our lifetime with 9/11. Virtually every collective commemorative or interpretive expression made toward 9/11 is subject to the explicit or tacit approval of survivors, rescue workers, or the family members of victims. I think we understand that, and if past be prelude, it will be that way for quite some time. The focus on public interpretation of 9/11 is squarely on the experience and suffering of victims and survivors.

 

Much the same thing happened after the Civil War.  In the aftermath of the Civil War, we accorded the rights to the memory of the conflict to the veterans on both sides.  They in turn fostered a swift but incomplete reconciliation—one that pasted over but did not extinguish lingering bitterness, one that was based on selective history and the desire to celebrate common virtues and suffering.  The focus of reconciliation—and the focus of America as it viewed its Civil War—became the shared courage and sacrifice of soldiers blue and gray on the battlefields.

 

A unique aspect of this as it relates to the Civil War is that the ownership of the war’s memory was bequeathed to subsequent generations, and in many instances the descendants have battled to protect and advocate for the memory of their ancestors every bit as vigorously as their ancestors did. 

From John Hennessy:

It certainly counts as one of the three or four strangest experiences of my life–the 45 seconds of confusion and even fear that accompanied the earthquake the other day. Many have rejoiced in being able to have checked something off their bucket list, and I confess I would be enthused about that too, except for the real damage the quake did. Indeed, the toll seems to be highest on historic buildings. In Culpeper, several buildings in the downtown were condemned. We had no such dramatics in Fredericksburg, but chimneys by the dozen tumbled, and not a few places had cracks and other bothersome problems.

You can find photos of the damage to the Fredericksburg Area Museum, in the old town hall, here.  And here too is video from Fredericksburglive.com of damage to the historic town hall and the building across the street, and the treatment undertaken on both.

From John Hennessy:

The story is one of the cornerstones of Manassas lore and a powerful symbol of post-war reconciliation–the Manassas version of Fredericksburg’s Richard Kirkland:  John Rice of the 2d New Hampshire is hopelessly wounded near Matthew’s Hill and left for dead.  But local resident Amos Benson and his wife Margaret find him and intervene, caring for him along the roadside (without moving him) for more than week, watching him make a miraculous recovery. Once well enough, Rice is sent to Manassas and then to Richmond with other wounded Union prisoners. In 1886, this is how Rice described his experience to a reporter:

“[After being wounded], my comrades bore me off in he wake of our retreating forces toward Sudley Church, where our surgeons had established a hospital. I a short time, being closely pursued by the enemy and finding that I was apparently dead, they laid me under a fence and made their escape. Some two days after the battle I recovered consciousness but was unable to move…In this condition I was found by Amos Benson and his wife, who lived on the opposite side of Bull Run. They were returning to their home at evening, after spending the day at Sudley church….Benson, discovering life in me, brought an overworked surgeon from the church, who, however, turned away with the remark that he had no time to spend on so hopeless a case. Mrs. Benson meanwhile brough me food from her house, while her husband removed my clothing and scraped away the vermin that were praying upon me. They continued to feed and care for me till at the end of 10 days I was so far revived that the surgeons were persuaded to remove me from under he fence to more comfortable quarters in a freight car at Manassas Junction, whence in a few days I was carried to Richmond and consigned to Libby Prison.” [From the Springfield Republican, November 24, 1886]

(Harry Smelzer has a very nice post on the Benson-Rice story and the sites today.)

More than 25 years later, Rice returned to the battlefield and looked up the Bensons, now living next to the abandoned cut of the Unfinished Railroad, across from Sudley Church.  They had a joyful reunion, and Rice asked if he can do anything to thank them for saving his life.  The Bensons asked for nothing, but did say that the Church, much damaged during the war, still had an outstanding debt it was finding difficult to pay. Rice returned to his home in Springfield, Massachusetts and published the story in the Springfield Republican. Within days, he had collected enough money to retire the debt on the church and sent it along.  The story received national publicity.

It’s all good, and there is ample documentation to confirm the events of 1886, when Rice and Benson reunited.  But, in going through some newspaper material recently, I came across an article in the Lowell Daily Citizen from February 3, 1862.

By John Hennessy. (On this blog we do a lot of history, but also explore some issues of public history. This is the latter–something of a follow-up to an op-ed piece I did in the Free Lance Star last weekend, which you can find here):

Not long ago I did a program in Spotsylvania County on the 1862 exodus to freedom in the Fredericksburg area, something we have written about a good deal. The event was at the new John J. Wright Museum in Spotsylvania County, a great exhibition dedicated to the history of African-Americans in Spotsylvania. We had a good crowd–60-70 people, about half black, half white.

The program was fine enough, but what occurred afterwards dropped jaws all around. I can’t explain how it happened, but the Q&A turned into a public forum on the place of the Civil War in our culture, and specifically how African-Americans view the War and slavery. It was as open an exchange about history among people with different backgrounds as I have ever seen. If we could bottle it and repeat it a thousands times, we’d make a difference in the world…

There were harsh, honest words. One man in particular declared that he viewed everything associated with the Confederacy as “toxic.” Another suggested that the Civil War has been and is simply a popular vehicle for helping to maintain white supremacy in America. Others pitched in–politely and productively, though often intensely–and through the room swirled a current of feeling that everyone who was there will remember the rest of their lives.

It wasn’t that everyone agreed; it was that everyone understood from whence other opinions came.

In public history we deal with lots of contrasting ideas and interpretations, for the Civil War was clearly the most complex event in our nation’s history. But every once in a while, from the swirl emerges some clarity–and so it was for me on this day.

I have written fairly extensively about the distinction between personal motivation and national purpose, and how we as a nation have, when it comes to the Civil War, often merged the two.

As these people spoke that day in Spotsylvania (the majority of the speakers African-Americans), the source of the chasm that exists between how African-Americans view the war (mostly as it relates to popular culture and politics) and how many white Southerners see it emerged. Virtually every person in that room who rose to speak saw of the Confederacy purely in terms of its national purpose–most prominently, its avowed intent (embodied in its constitution) to perpetuate a white supremacist nation that sustained slavery.

Many white Americans–with their intensely personal connection to the war and the Confederacy–speak of the war in terms of the personal motivation of participants (sometimes imperfectly understood), often their ancestors. To those Americans the war is defined not by national purpose, but by personal motivation.

And therein lies the great American chasm as it relates to the Civil War.

To many people in attendance, efforts to deny or redefine the national purpose of the Confederacy in order to reflect more positively on an ancestor or the South is simply offensive, and so the war evokes no connection or inspiration, only hostility.

From John Hennessy:

The discovery last week of bullets imbedded in a tree at Gettysburg reminded me of a transient mystery from my Manassas days.  Out in the area of Groveton woods–a couple hundreds yards east of where Porter staged for his August 30 attack–there stood a decrepit barn that once had been part of the farm of Montgomery Peters, a postwar resident on the battlefield. Like its owner, the barn was postwar too–we knew that–and so there was little urgency to halt its deterioration (the attitude would not be as dismissive today), which by the time I encountered it was decades old. Finally, the place just had to come down, and the park’s maintenance staff went at it.

Some of the timbers were ancient and huge, and when they cut into at least one of them, they found it contained several Civil War bullets.  But…the barn wasn’t there during the war?  A scramble to the source material confirmed that that was undeniably true. After some puzzling, we soon realized that the timbers had probably been cut from the adjacent woods, which had been the scene of heavy combat….

And that’s how bullets from the battle ended up in a barn that wasn’t there….

From John Hennessy [update: see the comment from Robert Moore for a couple of links to items that elaborate on this theme.]

In July 1891, Virginians took the 30th anniversary of the First Battle of Manassas to memorialize Stonewall Jackson anew–by reinterring him beneath and dedicating a new statue in the cemetery in Lexington, Virginia. The event attracted tens of thousands, including a brigades-worth of veteran of Lee’s army. It was, and remains, one of the most vivid expressions of Lost Cause nostalgia.

The monument over Jackson's grave, dedicated July 21, 1891.

By 1891, such events were an accepted part of the American landscape, as the spirit of reconciliation was in full national bloom. By any measure, the reconciliation that America undertook is astonishing when compared to the common fate of rebels and rebellions in other parts of the world. Part of the ostensible deal: former Confederates could have their glory too. Indeed, Confederate glory would, over time, be amalgamated into American culture.

Across the nation, Americans joined the chorus that surrounded Stonewall Jackson’s reinterment, or at least witnessed it in silence. But, not everyone proclaimed the accepted theme of reconciliation. While we sometimes like to see our history in simple terms, there was in fact a strong undercurrent of unhappiness and bitterness that flowed both ways (North and South).

As evidence: this editorial from a Michigan newspaper, the Jackson Citizen Patriot, written in response to the ceremonies in Lexington on the 30th anniversary of Manassas. (Jackson, MI is claimed by some to be the birthplace of the Republican party, and  it was almost certainly the birthplace of the Ritz cracker, though that’s less relevant here.) In noting the ceremonies in Lexington, the Michigan editorialist foreshadowed his dark take by noting that the “remains of the heroic traitor” had been buried beneath the new statue. He conceded that Jackson was “scarcely second to Lee as their military hero” and that “no one need object to that,” except, he said, “that no public monument should ever be permitted in this nation in memory of a man who violated his oath of allegiance and sought to destroy the government he was educated and trained to defend.”

On that Bull Run anniversary in Lexington, the keynote was given by former Unionist turned Southern patriot Jubal Early. As the unhappy Michigan editor wrote, “Gen. Early closed his oration with the following words, which ought to be memorized by every union soldier for the purpose of denouncing them:

‘If I should ever apologize for any part or action taken by me in the war, may the lightning of a righteous heaven blast me from earth, and may I be considered as spawn of the earth by all honest men.’”

The thousands in attendance cheered Early’s words, to the utter annoyance of our editor in Michigan.

From John Hennessy:

W.T. Grants, corner of Caroline and William. Courtesy Central Rappahannock Heritage Center.

It is likely the place most powerfully associated with the Civil Rights movement in Fredericksburg: the intersection of Caroline and William, at the very heart of downtown. In 1960–long before outlying strip malls rendered downtowns historical curiosities–this corner was the virtual center of commerce and shopping for the Fredericksburg region. Four prominent business sat on the four corners here, three of them major national chains. Department store Woolworths stood on the northeast corner, where R&R Antiques now stands. Across William, on the SE corner, was W.T. Grants (in the old Ben Franklin), a direct competitor to Woolworths both locally and on the national stage. Across Caroline from Grant’s (today it is the antique store next to Crown Jewelers) stood People’s Drug Store, then perhaps the most prominent chain drugstore in Virginia. Local Drugstore Bonds stood on the NW corner.

All three of the national chains had something in common: they all served food at in-store lunch counters. These counters would become a non-violent battleground in the struggle for civil rights.

Much was happening elsewhere that summer of 1860. At North Carolina A&T, students had started sit-in protests at lunch counters in Greensboro, and shortly thereafter enthusiasm for similar protests emerged in Fredericksburg. Problem was, Fredericksburg had no college or university that permitted African-American students, and so the lot fell to high school students to mount the challenge. 

Woolworths. Courtesy Central Rappahannock Heritage Center.

Local dentist Phillip Wyatt (president of the local NAACP chapter) and community activists Gladys Poles Todd and Mamie Scott worked with the students to organize the protests. They drilled in methods of non-violent protest, preparing for the resistance that would inevitably come. They dressed neatly. They learned not to touch merchandise–lest they be accused of theft. They organized shifts  committed to–by their simple presence–closing the lunch counters in the three chain stores on a rotating basis. 

On July 1, 19060, the protests began when eight students walked into Woolworth’s at 1 p.m.  They took their seats silently–some of them reading books–and did not order. Staff quickly put out signs, “This Section Closed.”  For an hour the students rotated between the three stores. As soon as the students left, staff reopened the counters to white customers. And so it would go.  The Free Lance-Star reported that “Police observed the afternoon demonstrations but indicated they contemplated no arrests unless a trespass complaint was filed by a store.” 

The sit-ins required extraordinary effort on the part of the students. Most of them lived in the Mayfield section of Fredericksburg and could get downtown only by walking. Every day. In the clutches of summer. 

But resistance came in many forms. 

From John Hennessy:

Last week we shared what I think is one of the truly iconic, metaphorical images of the war. That same day, photographer George Barnard took several more images. They are generally familiar to people who have spent time with Manassas, but there are a few things that jumped out at me.

Back when I was up to my ears in Manassas stuff, I was startlingly disinterested in historic images, doing little more than glancing at the few wartime images of Manassas then available and blandly accepting conventional wisdom (or traditional captions) about them. But getting ready for various events or tours associated with the 150th thrust me back, and this month for the first time (I blush to say) I took a close look at the newly available hi-res scans of  the Barnard’s spring 1862 images. I was immediately struck by the presence of the children in most of the images–clearly kids who had tagged along with the photographer, and whom he had decided to incorporate into his photographs. More interesting is this: they are almost certainly the Thornberry children, who lived just up the hill from Sudley Springs Ford. Samuel was 12 in 1860; his brother Joseph, 7, toddler Annetta,  and Laura, 5. All four appear in the image of the ford at Sudley Springs on Catharpin Run (above), but the boys continued on with Barnard and appear in several other images, both of them very neatly attired in miniature Confederate uniforms.

Here is an image of the Thornberry House (more commonly called “Sudley Post Office,” though it was not used in that function until after the war). For time unending, this had been identified as the obscure Thornton House, which stood a mile or so northeast of Sudley. But some really excellent detective work by long-time (he was there BEFORE I got there in 1981) museum technician Jim Burgess confirmed that it is indeed an image of John and Martha Thornberry’s home (read his analysis of the image here).

And there, standing on the pile of boards in the yard are Samuel and Joseph Thornberry.

A couple of quick things about the Thornberry House.

From John Hennessy (writing on Manassas for the first time in this forum):

Over the last fifteen years or so, my forays back into Manassas-related topics have always been unadventurous, relying almost entirely on things I uncovered and learned years ago rather than trying to hunt up (or even keep track of) new material. In the last week, though, I have had occasion to do some work in preparation for the tour I’ll be giving at Manassas this coming Friday as part of the 150th there–a look and walk through of the community of Sudley and its experience during and after First Manassas. This demanded that I not only revisit the material I’d accumulated way back when (it’s hard for me to admit that anything meaningful in my life could have happened nearly thirty years ago, hence the vagary), but also dig into what has become available since then. I’ve learned a good deal, some of it thanks to the seminal work of others.

Above is an image you and I have probably seen a thousand times, but never really took in closely. It shows four children sitting along Catharpin Run at Sudley Springs Ford, with seven Union cavalarymen looming on the far bank. Taken in March 1862, if there is an image that better serves as a metaphor for most white Virginians’ perception of the Civil War in its early months, I haven’t seen it: children facing down looming disaster in the form of Union soldiers.

We’ll write about the children visible in this image (for some of them appear in others taken the same day), but suffice to say that it’s virtually certain that these are the four children of John and Martha Thornberry, who lived just up the hill from the ford.

From John Hennessy:

Here is Stonewall Jackson at the Centennial Re-enactment of First Manassas,, 1961, a topic we will explore in future posts.

My apologies for being distracted from blogging lately–some heavy business at the park and vacations have intervened to rob of almost all thinking and writing time. It was indeed my intent to slow the pace of posts on here, but certainly not to the extent you have suffered of late.

As many of you know, I have written a great deal about Manassas over the years. There was a time when I was completely Manassas-ed out, and had little desire to read, speak, or see another word about Manassas.  But, have recovered from all that, and lately have been doing a lot of reflection on what I did and did not to do as it relates to the Civil War landscape around Manassas. One of the things that strikes me is the degree to which, in two books on the battles, I almost completely ignored the civilian landscape upon which the battles took place–hardly delving deeper than identifying property owners, with a few details added here and there. Lately I have been doing some prep work for a tour I’ll be doing at Manassas as part of the 150th–a walk through the former community of Sudley. And so I have re-engaged a bit on things Manassas, and I have enjoyed it a good deal. Not surprisingly, there are as a result a few things I’d like to write about related to Manassas. Rather than start another blog, I have decided simply to expand the scope of this one a bit to range northward from Fredericksburg occasionally.

I do this without any desire to intrude on the bloggish turf staked out by Harry Smeltzer over at Bull Runnings, a site I enjoy and respect very much (and recommend to you highly). Harry’s work is largely focused on compiling sources related to the battle; mine will be to occasionally look at issues of landscape, some mysteries, and maybe a few conundrums as they relate to Manassas.  We will not be leaving Fredericksburg behind…but will be simply broadening the scope of the blog a bit.  I’ll have a few Manassas-related items in the coming weeks, as well as a look at “Sit-in Corner” in Fredericksburg, and more.

I will concede that the business of blogging is a bit consumptive and exhaustive. For me, this expansion of the scope is a bit of a boost with respect to interest and energy.  I hope Noel, who has considerable expertise in things related to Northern Virginia, will join in on the discussion as well–as he has so often on things Fredericksburg related.  Onward.