Enduring Legacy:
Rhetoric and Ritual of the Lost Cause

By W. Stuart Towns

University of Alabama Press, 2012, 208 pp., $37.50

Reviewed by Gordon Berg

            The Lost Cause, like Faulkner’s past, is not dead and, according to W. Stuart Towns, it’s not even past.  In his incisive exploration of the rhetoric and ritual associated with the South’s most enduring myth, Towns maintains “that twentieth-century white southerners learned much of how they were going to think about race, about the North, about the Civil War and Reconstruction, and about themselves from the rhetoric of the Lost Cause.”

            A former communications professor at Southeast Missouri State University, Towns examines the public oratory that formed the bedrock of southern ideology after the end of the Civil War.  His prose is clear, concise, and unfailingly direct; his hypotheses are boldly stated and scrupulously supported with evidence; and his conclusions are solidly based in logic and data. 

            Towns is non-judgmental about the post-war South's white supremacy ideology.  His aim is to show how ceremonial speaking and other forms of public address  were    the “primary vehicles for creating and disseminating the Lost Cause to the South's oral culture.”  Speeches at Confederate Memorial Day ceremonies, regimental reunions, and monument dedications extolled the valued heritage of a white society destroyed by the war.  For the formerly ascendant class, Lost Cause ritual and oratory “created a sense of order and community out of the chaos, uncertainty, and despair of defeat.”

            Many of the orators Towns investigates are not household names today.  But prominent people like Tennessee Senator William B. Bate, Florida Governor Cary A. Hardee, and veteran John Warwick Daniel, known as the “Lame Lion of Lynchburg” were regular speakers at civic gatherings like the 1910 reunion at Little Rock, AK that drew 150,000 spectators to watch 12,000 Confederate veterans and 14 bands pass in review.  

            The idea of redemption was an essential component of Lost Cause ideology.  It gave white Southerners the hope of setting things right again after their long night of radical, black dominated, Reconstruction.  “This redemption,” Towns argues, “was strongly reinforced by southern speakers in words that echoed for several generations as a cornerstone for the white-controlled, absolutely segregated, 'Solid South.'”

            Towns argues, persuasively, that Lost Cause orators spread their social vision so effectively and so persuasively “that they are still alive today and will remain so well into the future.”  In the desegregation and civil rights decades of the 1950s and 1960s, Towns maintains, Lost Cause rhetoric “justified, vindicated, defended, and explained states’ rights and white supremacy as enduring and fundamental planks of the ‘southern way of life.’”  Towns finds a clear and direct link between the “right of secession” and “sacred honor” rationales offered by former Confederate generals John Bell Hood and John Brown Gordon in the 1870s and the code words of “states’ rights” and “constitutional liberty” used by governors Ross Barnett and George Wallace in the 1960s.

            Towns hopes that the sesquicentennial commemoration will be used by people North and South to discuss and more fully understand the rhetoric underlying what Robert Penn Warren called “the great single event of our history.”

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Gordon Berg is a past President and member of the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia (http://www.cwrtdc.org/).  His reviews and articles appear in the Civil War Times and America's Civil War, among other publications.

America’s Great Debate:
Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas,
and the Compromise That Preserved the Union

By Fergus M. Bordewich
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2012, 398 pp.

Reviewed by Publishers Weekly

In this vivid, insightful history of the bitter controversy that led to the Compromise of 1850, journalist Bordewich (Washington: The Making of the American Capital) reminds us that Southerners dominated all branches of the federal government until 1850.  Every president had owned slaves except the two Adamses, and Southern states still made up half of the Senate.  The territorial bonanza after the 1845-1847 Mexican war threatened their control because California and New Mexico's governments excluded slavery.

Outraged Southern leaders refused to accept this, paralyzing Congress for months. A compromise designed by an aged Henry Clay failed, but was quickly revived and passed thanks largely to Stephen Douglas.  It admitted California as a free state, put off the status of the remaining territory, and strengthened the fugitive slave law. Despite narrow passage and wildly abusive debate, it was a dazzling achievement that temporarily staved off civil war. Political history is often a hard slog, but not in Bordewich's gripping, vigorous account featuring a large cast of unforgettable characters with fierce beliefs.

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Fergus Bordewich is a member of the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia (cwrtdc.org).  His other books include America’s Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union and Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America.  Additional information about Mr. Bordewich and his books, articles and other publications is available on his website http://www.fergusbordewich.com/books.html

NEW ON DVD

Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray:

Faith Under Fire in the American Civil War

Indigo Films Entertainment Group, Inc.  88 minutes

Mosby’s Combat Operations
in Fairfax County, Virginia

HMS Productions, Inc. 90 minutes

Reviewed By Gordon Berg

Ten thousand Jews fought in the Civil War; 7,000 for the North, 3,000 for the South.  Although largely ignored in the traditional historiography of the period, “Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray,“ a deftly produced, visually compelling DVD from Indigo Films, capably fills void.

Using the Ken Burns-like approach to documentary film making (expert talking heads interspersed with period graphics and contemporary video), the DVD is chock-full of interesting facts and compelling anecdotes about how Jews reacted to the coming of the war and the exploits of individuals on the battlefield and the home front.  

Profiles include Judah P. Benjamin, a lawyer and pre-war senator from Louisiana, who was the second most-powerful official in the Confederate government, serving as Secretary of War and later as Secretary of State. Abraham C. Myers served as the Confederacy’s Quartermaster General and Moses Ezekiel, the first Jewish cadet at the Virginia Military Academy, fought with his classmates at the battle of New Market in June 1864.

Union Brigadier General Frederick Knefler was the highest ranking Jewish officer in the Civil War; Captain Isaac Moses was the war’s first aerial battle observer, reporting on Confederate positions at Williamsburg, VA in 1862; and Sergeant Leopold Karpeles of the 57th Massachusetts was one of five Jews to receive the Medal of Honor.  

The video also describes what it calls the most blatant anti-Semitic act in American history, Ulysses S. Grant’s infamous General Order 11 of December 1862 that ordered all Jews to leave the territory under his command within 24 hours.  The order caused a furor throughout the North and, under pressure from Jewish leaders, President Lincoln ordered it rescinded.

Screenwriter and director John Milius, whose Jewish ancestors rode with rebel partisan rangers in Missouri, provides a clear narrative voice to move the action along and actor Sam Waterston confidently voices the words of President Abraham Lincoln.

In the early days of television, actor Todd Andrews portrayed the Confederacy’s most successful mounted partisan ranger, John Singleton Mosby in muted shades of black and white.  Now, six enthusiastic Mosby historians from Northern Virginia revive the exploits of this colorful cavalier by visiting 42 locations where he jousted with perennially frustrated Union horsemen.

While “Mosby’s Combat Operations in Fairfax County, Virginia” lacks some of the production values of professional video company, the historical expertise of the producers overcomes many unavoidable liabilities such as often shooting in locations that long ago succumbed to suburban sprawl.  Eric Buckland, Tom Evans, Don Hankerson, Charles Mauro, Stevan Meserve, and Mayo Stuntz also make effective use of period illustrations and each provides insightful on-camera commentary.   

A handsome map accompanying the DVD will allow modern day battlefield trampers to revisit the sites of Mosby’s exploits, now armed with the cogent commentary provided by this informative documentary.




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Gordon Berg is a past President and member of the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia (www.cwrtdc.org).  His reviews and articles appear in the Civil War Times and America's Civil War, among other publications.

Lincoln’s Forgotten Ally:
Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt of Kentucky

Elizabeth D. Leonard

University of North Carolina Press, 2011, 432 pp., $40.00

 Reviewed By Gordon Berg          

If you happen to be writing a book about Joseph Holt, Abraham Lincoln’s Judge Advocate General and prosecutor of those who conspired to assassinate the martyred president, stop right now.  Elizabeth Leonard has already written the definitive biography of this worldly, wealthy, and erudite Kentuckian who suffered political disappointment and family ostracism because of his passionate anti-slavery beliefs and commitment to preserving the Union.

Leonard writes with clarity, energy, and assurance; much as her subject did. When only 17, Holt declared “While we tolerate slavery, we are only feeding and nourishing our own destroyer…”  Holt maintained that slavery was “contrary to every principle of justice, every precept of morality, every feeling of humanity, every sentiment of honor” and he held these beliefs throughout his life.  These views ran counter to those held by most of his family and friends.

A successful lawyer and rising star in the Democratic Party, Holt became Secretary of War in the waning days of James Buchanan’s administration.  By accepting this appointment, Leonard maintains, he “boldly, courageously, and with unshakable commitment chose the Union over Kentucky, over the states, over the South, and -- potentially -- over slavery.”   After the fall of Fort Sumter, Holt wrote to former president Buchanan and declared  “Now that the South has begun an unprovoked and malignant war upon the U.S., I am decidedly in favor of prosecuting the struggle until the citizens of the seceded States shall be made to obey the laws as we obey them."

Leonard reveals that after the fort fell, Lincoln called on Holt and asked him to return to their native state and undertake “an all-out effort to ensure Kentucky’s fidelity and… to transform its supposed neutrality into active military support.”  He crisscrossed the state giving speeches, supporting the recruitment of men loyal to the Union for military service, and clandestinely arranging to supply them with arms.      

Although Holt had no military experience, Lincoln appointed him judge advocate general of the army in September 1862 because, Leonard maintains, he was “a brilliant, rational, stunningly articulate, painstakingly careful attorney, and because he was a fearlessly determined supporter of the Union.”  With thousands of cases to evaluate, Holt was in almost daily contact with the president.  Some of the most interesting cases this former slave owner handled involved the legal, civil, and human rights of slaves and former slaves.  Holt evaluated the evidence evenhandedly, even when the crimes appeared to be perpetrated against white.

Holt vigorously supported Lincoln’s decision to suspend habeas corpus, Congresses enactment of the Second Confiscation Act, and the Emancipation Proclamation, believing them all to be legal as necessities of war.  His intention, Leonard concludes, “was to support the president and his policies unwaveringly…and to make use of all the legal means at his command to move immediately and boldly against the nation’s enemies…”  

One of these legal means was the right of black men to enlist and serve in the Union army.  At the request of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Holt issued an opinion that the Constitution held that men of African descent were people, not property, and therefore could be called upon to bear arms “in defense of the Government under which they live and by which they are protected.”  Holt also held that after the war, black veterans should enjoy all the rights that the Constitution bestowed upon its citizens.

During the trial of the Lincoln conspirators, Holt’s primary task was to gather evidence establishing the guilt of the eight defendants.  He also issued the opinion that they should be tried by military tribunal, not a civilian court.  He sought, in vain, to establish a link between the conspirators and members of the Confederate government.

After the turbulent tenure of Andrew Johnson, Holt looked forward to the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant.  In spite of a continuing heavy workload, Congress was determined to shrink the national army and its attendant bureaucracy.  It reduced the staff of the Bureau of Military Justice.  While some politicians and military officers advocated closing the bureau, Holt staunchly defended its existence.  “Some such establishment,” he declared, “is certainly necessary in every civilized country that proposes to submit its military administration to the guidance and limitations of law.” 

Holt remained a hard-working judge advocate general until 1875.  When he died in 1894, he was buried with full military honors in the family cemetery in Stephensport KY, next to relatives who had scorned his devotion to the Union.


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Gordon Berg is a past President and member of the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia (www.cwrtdc.org).  His reviews and articles appear in the Civil War Times and America's Civil War, among other publications.

John Brown Descendant Looks Back—and to the Future

Interview by Gordon Berg

All families have secrets.  Imagine 16 year-old Alice Kesey Mecoy’s suprise when she found out she was directly related to John Brown, one of the most controversial figures in American history.  Mecoy is the great, great, granddaughter of Brown’s daughter Annie. Before her death in 1926, Annie insisted that all her letters be burned—presumably because she didn’t want to bring attention to her family’s history. Alice’s parents and grandparents knew of the relationship but kept quiet about it until a historian  interviewed them in the 1960s. For the past 15 years, Alice has devoted herself to researching the family, particularly its women, whose lives after Brown’s march on Harpers Ferry have long been unheralded.

How many direct descendants of John Brown are there?

There’s a few hundred.  I haven’t contacted all of them but I’ve found many that don’t want to discuss the family.

Brown’s widow, Mary, and surviving children moved from their farm in North Elba, NY, in 1863. Where did they go?

First they went to Iowa, where they put money down on a farm. But after six months, and the coldest winter on record, Mary, said, “I’m going on to California.” They originally went to Red Bluff, where people built them a house, after collecting pennies and nickels from all over the state. The family moved on within three years (there’s some disagreement whether it was because it was too hot near Sacramento or because there were a lot of ex-Confederates in the area who were threatening them). They went north to Humboldt County. Later Mary with Sarah and Ellen, the two youngest daughters, went down to the Santa Clara area. But Annie stayed in Humboldt County, where my dad, Paul Meredith Keasey, was born.

When did you first find out you were related to Brown?

My dad’s mother, Beatrice Cook Keasey, participated in a quilt-making group celebrating history.  Every woman sewed something different on her square; my grandmother chose  Harpers Ferry and mentioned her relationship to John Brown. When Jean Libby, a John Brown expert, heard about it, she wanted to photograph and interview our family. My dad said no, but my grandmother said she could take pictures of the grandchildren. I was 16 and my brother was 11. My first reaction was, “I’m related to that crazy guy!”  In my schoolbooks, that’s how he was portrayed.

Did your understanding of Brown change as you grew up?

I really didn’t care when I was 16.  I didn’t care until I had children of my own. Then I started doing a little research, and for the past 15 years I’ve been really getting into it. I think there are enough people out there writing about Grandpa that I leave it to them. I’m focusing on the genealogy and the women, and also what Brown’s ideas were on women’s rights. I have a great respect for him now.

Do Americans have a true sense of who he was and what he tried to do?

No, I don’t think so. It’s a lot better than it used to be. For a long time he was a villain, and depicted as a crazy man. Then some saw him as a saint; now he’s finally come back around to being just a man. He wasn’t just out to free the slaves, he wanted women and Indians to have the right to vote. He wanted equality across the board.  He was well ahead of his time.

 

What are you doing to improve the public’s understanding of Brown and his family?

I lecture on the Brown women and correct misinformation in public and on my blog. I also answer about 30 e-mails a week. I’m writing a book about the Brown women. We actually had the John Brown sesquicentennial in 2009. We reenacted the march from the Kennedy farm, the trial, the hanging, and the funeral. I stood on the exact spot where they built the gallows. That was very emotional for me.

Did any of Brown’s children renounce him?

No.  But Annie never spoke of him. She didn’t tell her children.  It was always a secret in my family—we didn’t talk about it.  But reading her letters you can tell she was frustrated at the way people interpreted who he was and what he tried to do.  Later in life, Annie did start speaking out. She was very adamant about women’s rights. She was a teetotaler, too, so she was for prohibition.

Why do you think Annie never spoke of him?

She was trying to protect her children, which is part of why the family came to California.They wanted the kids not to be burdened with the legacy of being John Brown’s grandchildren.They had been in the limelight so long.They would still give interviews if people found them, but they weren’t searching for it.

So none of the children tried to exploit the relationship?

No.  In fact, they gave away everything that they could later have sold—signatures, letters, a hand-written copy of his constitution—they just sent them off to people. And when Annie was asked to be at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago  she adamantly refused, writing: “I’m not going on display. I think it’s awful, I just can’t believe it, but they want my kids to go, and my kids are thinking about it.”  In the end, none of the Browns participated.

Do you think John Brown has a valid message today?

He wanted equality for everyone. When you read his articles and his letters, he was for equality of women, blacks and the Indians. He didn’t want to free the slaves and send them away. He wanted to free them and live with them. He wanted all people to live together in harmony and all people to be treated equal. That was a pretty radical thing for 1859, and in some places that’s still a radical thing now.

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Alice Keasy Mecoy lives in Allen, TX

Her blog can be found at jbrownkin@blogspot.com

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Gordon Berg is a past President and member of the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia (www.cwrtdc.org).  His reviews and articles appear in the Civil War Times and America's Civil War, among other publications.