From John Hennessy:

I came across this curiosity tonight in the May 6, 1899 issue of the Charleston Evening Post–something I had never heard of before.

A news piece that same day notes, “The advance forces of the Pain Fire-works Company have been at work this week arranging the grounds for the grand reproduction of the “Battle of Manassas,” or the first Bull Run fight. Everything is in perfect order, and on next Wednesday evening the gates will be opened to receive the vast crowds which will undoubtedly be attracted to witness this magnificent production.

The scene representing the battle-field is one of the most perfect paintings that Mr. Pain has ever presented. The battle will be given in very detail, and Gen. Johnston’s famous charge illustrated by an army of well trained men. The costumes, arms and equipments are fac-similes of those used at the battle….”

The pyrotechnical display which closes each exhibition has been especially arranged for the occasion, and the features will be emblematic of the U.C.V. [United Confederate Veterans].  Massive portraits in lines of fire will be presented of the leaders and the Confederacy, and the Bonnie Blue Flag will float proudly over the base ball park during Reunion week.“

Another article from the May 3 issue noted that the “massive scenery to be used in the presentation has arrived and the artists and carpenters will begin the erection of the same tomorrow. The scene represents the old battlefield and surroundings and has been painted from sketches made by engineers at the time of the battle….Every detail of the battle will be pictured and over five hundred men will take part….The scenery is entirely new, having been painted especially for this presentation.”

Opening night, May 10, 1899, saw 5,000 people pour into the ball park to watch the spectacle. The newspaper tried to put the happiest spin on things. The public went away, said the newspaper, “perfectly satisfied with what they saw” (perhaps not the lavish praise the organizers sought).  ”The fight was as realistic as could be made, and the effect was altogether good….The heavens were brilliantly illuminated with rockets, exploding troubles, and set pieces.”

But beneath the tepid praise were ominous rumblings. The next day’s paper carried word that after a second performance “The Battle of Manassas will not be given again at the base ball park.”  The news note continued, “The public have been greatly disappointed with the spectacle since the first night it was given….There will not be a display tonight.”

What exactly this thing was is not really clear.  Do any of you out there know?  A living panorama?  A moving map?  Just an excuse for some fireworks?

In any event, it’s an interesting effort to capitalize on the American tradition of war watching begotten by Manassas.

 

 

 

From John Hennessy:

If you haven’t read Pat Sullivan’s blog Spotsylvania Memory, you should. He views regional history through the eyes of his family’s long presence on this land. He’s a great writer possessed of fabulous source material, with a terrific balance of hard-bitten history and sentimentality. I promote this for no reason other than it’s REALLY good. http://spotsylvaniamemory.blogspot.com

From John Hennessy:

 

We re-post this from last year…

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’s one of the standard tales of First Manassas:  that the widow Judith Carter Henry’s death during the fighting on her farm on July 21, 1861, helped outrage the South, embitter the war. The presumption has always been that in the post-battle hunt for atrocities both sides undertook (avidly), the death of Mrs. Henry at the hands of Ricketts’s guns that afternoon ranks near the top.

Union artilleryman Captain James Ricketts later admitted that he “thoroughly riddled” Mrs. Henry’s house. This is how it appeared soon after the battle.

I can find no evidence of that. Mrs. Henry’s name rarely appears in newspapers North or South in the weeks and months following the battle. Rather, her death seems simply to have been accepted as an inevitable outcome of battle (no one then could know how uncommon civilian deaths in battle would really be during the Civil War). So far as I can see, no one trotted out her sad fate as evidence of Yankee perfidy, even though the press worked feverishly to document supposed Union barbarities.

The status of Mrs. Henry as lamented public martyr seems to me to be another one of those misplaced presumptions that morph into myth.

The ruins of the Henry House, after being dismantled by the Confederates for souvenirs and building material the winter following the battle.

From John Hennessy (a Manassas musing on the 150th anniversary of the battle–newly updated with an additional image):

No photograph I have ever seen conveys more vividly the weight of war on those who struggled through it than this one.

This is an image of Lt. Colonel Joseph McLean of the 88th Pennsylvania–his shirt unbuttoned, shoulders slumped, face heavy with sadness or fatigue. Precisely 150 years ago this afternoon–almost to the minute as I write this–McLean fell in the swirl of fighting on Chinn Ridge, at Second Manassas. About most who fell in this war, we know little beyond the official record–little of their life, their being, or their death. But of this man, Lt. Colonel Joseph McLean of the 88th Pennsylvania, we know a good deal.

Compare that image with this one, taken just before the Civil War, newly provided by McLean descendant Tim Perella (I am grateful for his sending it along and helping to share the story of Joseph McLean).

The purpose of war is to inflict hurt and suffering and destruction and death in quantity and intensity enough to compel the other side to yield the effort. Every death sent a pulse of pain through a family, community, and nation that in some way challenged their will to continue.

Back in my Manassas days, the family of Joseph McLean came to the battlefield, bearing his pictures and letters. Mike Andrus took them to the place where “Uncle Joe,” as they called him, fell. The pain from his death lingered still.  It was a tortuous, compelling experience for the family, made more so by the crushing blow McLean’s death was for his wife and family.

From John Hennessy:

[A note:  I'll be sharing occasional musings, curiosities, and discoveries about my research on Twitter henceforth--@JohnHennessy2]

Memorial Day in Fredericksburg is always special. This is a community touched deeply by war, and the quest to accord meaning and understanding to the loss is an annual rite, often intensely felt.

The day began, as it does every year, at the Confederate Cemetery at the head of Amelia Street. Compared to the NPS effort in the National Cemetery, this ceremony is almost always more colorful and musical, and often more compelling. Today Bill Freehling spoke about the six Confederate generals buried in the cemetery.

The ceremony at the Confederate Cemetery is managed by the Ladies Memorial Association of Fredericksburg, one of only two LMAs remaining in Fredericksburg.  The continuity of the Fredericksburg LMA’s efforts over the decades is one thing that makes this ceremony so powerful each year. It is the definition of tradition and a heartfelt expression to the spirit of those who served and fell under the Confederate flag.

While most years the ceremony in the Confederate Cemetery is the better ticket, this year the ceremony in the National Cemetery got more attention. This year, the 23d USCT (re-constituted) resurrected the long-ago tradition of members of the African-American community leading the Memorial Day services in the cemetery.  We have discussed the end of those services here.

The 23d USCT, with a considerable throng of citizens trailing behind, marched through the streets of Fredericksburg to the cemetery, where they were joined by members of the 13th Virginia and 3d U.S. Infantry.

Rev. Lawrence Davies (former mayor and pastor at Shiloh Baptist Church Old Site) offered up thoughtful, direct, and hopeful address on the importance of the traditional connection of the African-American community to the practice of honoring the dead in the Fredericksburg cemetery. More than that, he offered up the idea that the effort was vitally important today, as an expression of reconciliation–not between sections, but between, as he called it, “factions” within the community.

Today was, indeed, the first time that we know that any sort of organized groups representing the African American Community, the former Confederacy, and the U.S. Army came together to observe Memorial Day in Fredericksburg.

I hear constant rumblings that some think this a bad thing or a bad idea.  I daresay no one who was there today could thoughtfully label it such.  The audience in attendance–about 350–was the largest the ceremony has seen in many, many years.

It was a good day for history in Fredericksburg.

The procession from the church to the cemetery was joined by a few self-styled “Flaggers,” each bearing a Confederate flag.  They were respectful and genial every step, as was, I think, the audience toward them.

A passing shot:  here is Captain James Keith Boswell’s grave at the Confederate Cemetery this morning.  He fell in the volley that mortally wounded Stonewall Jackson at Chancellorsville.

Thanks to Tom Breen for sending this along today.  We have often spoken of the complicated relationships between slaves and masters, and how slavery defies the sort of simple interpretations so often thrown out.  Here is a letter that embodies that in itself.  Very interesting stuff.

 

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.