A Leadership Legacy: Happy 138th, Winston

Philip White

November 30 was Winston Churchill’s birthday. 138 years after his birth, historians, politicians and the public are still as fascinated as ever about this most iconic of British Prime Ministers. Of course, as with every major historical figure, the

Ivor Roberts-Jones statue of Churchill, Oslo, Norway

amount of one-sided deconstructionism has increased over the past few years, no more useful to the reader than one-sided hagiography. The truth, of course, lies somewhere in the middle–a deeply flawed (aren’t we all!) larger-than-life figure who botched a lot of decisions–notably his resistance to home rule for India and well-meaning but ill-conceived support of Edward VIII during the 1936 abdication crisis–who got the big things right.

Among the latter was Churchill’s foresight over the divisions between the democratic West and the Communist East. Since the inception of Communism and its violent manifestation in the Russian Revolution, Churchill had despised the movement, calling it a “pestilence.” Certainly, his monarchial devotion was part of this, but more so, Churchill believed Communism destroyed the very principles of liberty and freedom that he would devote his career to advancing and defending. Certainly, with his love of Empire, there were some inconsistencies in his thinking, but above all, Churchill believed that the individual should be able to make choices and that systemic freedom–of the press, of religion, of the ballot, must be upheld for individuals to enact such choices. That’s why he vowed to “strangle Bolshevism in its cradle,” though his plan to bolster anti-Communist forces was quickly shot down by Woodrow Wilson and David Lloyd George as another of “Winston’s follies.”

In this case, his plan to oppose Communism was indeed unrealistic. There were a small amount of British, Canadian, and American troops and a trickle of supporting materiel going to aid the White Russians toward the end of World War I, but once the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, the Allied leaders wanted to get their boys home, not commit more to a seemingly hopeless cause.

But over the next three decades, Churchill’s ideas on how to deal with Communism became more informed, more realistic and, arguably, more visionary. Though he reluctantly accepted Stalin as an ally when Hitler turned on Russia in the fateful summer of 1941, Churchill’s pragmatism and public admiration of the Marshal did not blind him to the ills of the Communist system. The Percentages Agreement he signed with Stalin in a late 1944 meeting has since been blamed for hastening the fall of democratic Eastern Europe, but what Churchill was actually doing there was essentially recognizing that the Communist takeover was a fait accompli, and guaranteeing Stalin’s agreement to largely leave the Greek Communists to their own devices in Greece after World War II. Though Moscow did supply arms and it took the Marshall Plan to prop up the anti-Communist side in Greece, Stalin largely honored this pledge.

He was not so good on his word with many other things, however. Among the promises he made to Churchill and FDR were to include the London Poles (exiled during the war) in a so-called representative government in Poland. In fact, the Communist puppet Lublin Poles ran the new regime after the war, and the old guard was either shunned or killed. In fact, horrifyingly, many of the leaders of the Polish Underground were taken out by Stalin’s henchmen, and others were held in former Nazi camps that the Red Army had supposedly “liberated.” At the Potsdam Conference in July 1946, Stalin showed that his vows at Yalta were mere lip service to the British and American leaders.  He made demands for bases in Turkey, threatened the vital British trade route through the Suez canal and refused to withdraw troops from oil-rich Iran.

Churchill, still putting his faith in personal diplomacy, believed he could reason with Stalin, particularly if Harry Truman backed him up. But halfway through the Potsdam meeting the British public sent the Conservative Party to its second worst defeat in one of the most surprising General Election decisions. Churchill was out as Prime Minister and Clement Attlee was in. Off Attlee went to Germany to finish the dialogue with Truman and Stalin. Churchill feared he was headed for political oblivion.

Yet, after a few weeks of moping, he realized that he still had his pen and, as arguably the most famous democratic leader of the age (only FDR came close in global renown), his voice. And so it was that he accepted an invitation to speak at a most unlikely venue in March 1946 – Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri – not least due to the postscript that Truman added to Westminster president Franc “Bullet” McCluer’s invite, offering to introduce Churchill in the President’s home state. There he described the need for a “special relationship” between the British Commonwealth and the United States, which was needed to check the spread of expansionist Communism and the encroachment of the “iron curtain” into Europe. 

As I explained

Philip White speaking at the National
Churchill Museum, Fulton, Missouri, Nov 11, 2012

when I spoke at the National Churchill Museum on, fittingly, Armistice Day, last month, this metaphor entered our lexicon and was embodied in the Berlin Wall–the enduring image of the standoff. Yet the “special relationship” outlived this symbol, as did the principles of leadership Churchill displayed in his brave “Sinews of Peace” speech (the real title of what’s now known as the “Iron Curtain” address). Churchill was willing to speak a hard truth even when he knew it would be unpopular and then, a few days later, after a police escort was needed to get him into New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel as demonstrators yelled “GI Joe is home to stay, Winnie, Winnie, go away,” to boldly declare, “I do not wish to withdraw or modify a single word.” His critics again called him an imperialist, an old Tory and, in as Stalin said, a warmonger. The same insults he had endured when sounding the alarm bell about Hitler in the mid- to late-1930s. And in 1946, just as in the 1930s, Churchill was right.

Not only did Churchill define the Communist-Democratic divide, he also had a plan for what to do about it. Though his more ambitious ideas, including shared US-UK citizenship, did not come to fruition, the broader concepts were embodied in the creation of NATO, European reconciliation, and the Marshall Plan. He also understood not just the Communist system he criticized but the democratic one it threatened, and, the day after the anniversary of Jefferson’s inaugural address, gave a memorable defense of the principles that were, he said, defined by common law and the Bill of Rights. This is something leaders of any political persuasion must be able to do–to articulate what they and we stand for, and why.

As I think of Churchill just after his birthday, that’s what I’m focusing on: vision, understanding and bravery. Such leadership principles will be just as valid 138 years from now as they were on that sunny springtime afternoon in Fulton.

Titanic Obsessions

Heather Cox Richardson

One hundred years ago, in April 1912, the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg and sank, taking more than 1,500 people with her.

I’ve never been one of those people obsessed with the sinking of the Titanic. When I was a child, my mother carefully pored over the passenger lists and the investigation report and talked of the steerage passengers who died in families; I carefully avoided what seemed to me deadly dull columns of names and numbers. In 1997, when the world wept over the movie about it; I thought Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet were so annoying I cheered on the iceberg.

But for all my refusal to engage with Titanic obsessions, I find the images in this video strangely fascinating: http://www.rmstitanic.net/100th-anniversary.html.

They seem to me part art, part tomb.

The Battle of Olustee, February 20, 1864

Heather Cox Richardson

Monday was the anniversary of the Battle of Olustee, the largest Civil War battle fought in Florida. Although few people today have even heard of it, Olustee was crucial in convincing Civil War era Americans to accept black freedom.

On February 7, 1864, Federal troops landed in Jacksonville. Carving Florida off from the rest of the Confederacy had several obvious advantages. First, the Confederacy was hurting for food, especially cattle. When the Union took the Mississippi River, it cut off the Texas herds from the rest of the South. The cattle herds in Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, and South Carolina could not fill the gap. If the Union could cut the lines for moving the Florida cattle that still fed the South in 1864, it would be closer to starving the South into submission. One general estimated in 1864 that 20,000 head of cattle and 10,000 hogs a year went from Florida to feed the Southern armies.

President Lincoln also wanted to reorganize Florida out from under the Confederacy as a free state much as he was trying to do in Louisiana. Opponents carped that he was trying to get Florida back into Congress so he could count on more electoral votes in the 1864 election, although there were obvious reasons to want Florida back on the Union side even without the president’s reelection fight looming on the horizon.

Finally, an excursion into Florida promised to attract black recruits to fight for the Union. And in 1864, new soldiers would be quite welcome to the battle-thinned Union ranks.

Brigadier General Truman Seymour, the head of the expedition, had strict orders not to move far from Jacksonville. Instead, Union troops under Colonel Guy V. Henry of the Fortieth Massachusetts mounted quick raids that destroyed supplies and reconnoitered the Confederate army. Their operations among the poor and dispirited people were successful and relatively painless: they suffered few losses.

It was perhaps the ease of the raiding to that date that made General Seymour decide on February 17 to march his 5,500 men 100 miles west to destroy the railroad bridge over the Suwanee River. Seymour did not know that Confederate officers had surmised the danger to Florida and had moved troops quickly to prevent Union troops from gaining a foothold in the interior. Five thousand Confederates under Brigadier General Joseph Finegan were encamped on the road Seymour’s men would take, near the railroad station at Olustee, about fifty miles from Jacksonville.

When the two armies came together in mid-afternoon on February 20, Seymour threw his men in without much forethought, apparently believing he was up against the same ragtag fighters Henry had been smashing for weeks. But Finegan’s men were experienced troops. They trained their cannons and held their ground. The Union lost more than 1800 men to the Confederacy’s 950. Most of the surviving Union soldiers ran from the field to hightail it down the road back to Jacksonville.[1]

The Union rout did not turn into a panic solely because the remnants of the Massachusetts 54th and the 35th U. S. Colored Troops held the Confederates back to cover the retreat. The soldiers of the Massachusetts 54th had earned their reputation for bravery in the assault at Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina the previous July. At Olustee, the black soldiers from the 54th and the 35th held their ground until past dark, enabling the white troops to get safely out of range, before they received their orders to move back toward Jacksonville.

Few people now remember Florida’s major Civil War battle, but it made a searing impression on President Lincoln. “There have been men who have proposed to me to return to slavery the black warriors of Port Hudson & Olustee to their masters to conciliate the South,” he told visitors in August 1864. “I should be damned in time & in eternity for so doing.” (AL to Alexander W. Randall and Joseph T. Mills, August 19, 1864, in Roy P. Basler, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, volume 7, pp. 507.)
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[1] The New York Times noted that the Colonel Henry had three horses shot out from under him during the battle, but was himself unhurt. His luck would not hold. Henry continued to serve in the army until 1892. He fought in the Apache campaign before joining the Sioux Wars. He was shot in the face in the Battle of the Rosebud, losing part of his cheek and one eye. He later led the Ninth Cavalry in the events surrounding the Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee Massacre.

Anniversaries and Birthdays, 2012

Randall Stephens

2012 marks "the bicentenary of Dickens's birth, and the planned programme of events is huge," writes Dinah Birch in the TLS.

It will reach far beyond the literary world, encompassing exhibitions, debates, documentaries, theatrical performances, public readings, and television and radio programmes. Films will include a major new Great Expectations. In Houston, there is to be a half-marathon especially for Dickens enthusiasts. No one with a taste for history, books, public events, or dressing up need feel left out.

Dickens shares his birth year with Dorothea Dix, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, and Harriet Martineau. But to paraphrase The Smiths, some names are bigger than others. These others will generate relatively minor celebrations as compared with Dickens birthday. As far as I know, though, the adjectives "Dumasian" or "Hugoian" do not roll off the tongue or conjure a whole range of ideas. Why do we commemorate and celebrate what we do? What make some events, birthdays more important than others?

What other anniversaries can we expect will be celebrated/commemorated in 2012? (The following sampling is collected from historyorb.com)

1852

Mar 20th - Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" published (Boston)

May 18th - Massachusetts rules all school-age children must attend school

1912

Feb 8th - 1st eastbound US transcontinental flight lands in Jacksonville, Fla

Apr 2nd - Sun Yet Sen forms Guomindang-Party in China

Apr 15th - Titanic sinks at 2:27 AM off Newfoundland

Sep 27th - W C Handy publishes "Memphis Blues"

Oct 8th - 1st Balkan War begins - Montenegro declares war on Turkey

1952

Feb 7 – Elizabeth II is proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom

Mar 27th - Sun Records of Memphis begins releasing records

May 8th - Mad Magazine debuts

Nov 4th - Eisenhower (R) elected 34th pres beating Adlai Stevenson (D)

The Berlin Wall 50 Years On: Symbol of Division, and of Hope

Philip White



This past weekend, German citizens turned out en masse to recognize the 50th anniversary of East German authorities putting up the Berlin Wall. Coming 15 years after Winston Churchill’s Sinews of Peace speech, this barrier was the embodiment of the Iron Curtain that the British Prime Minister (ex-PM at the time) had spoken of in March 1946. The Wall not only carved Berlin in twain, but also the political and philosophical world–with liberal democracies with capitalist economic models on the western side and the totalitarian Communist regimes on the eastern.



Many desperate souls from the east (at least 136 reported, with many other likely not counted) died trying to get over the wall and with each failed attempt, the dreams of families hoping for a different life in the west perished, too. The commemoration in Berlin was no celebration, but rather a somber affair marked by church bells pealing out and flags billowing in the breeze at half-mast on the Reichstag. In the spot where the wall stood is now a chapel, which held a memorial service for those who lost their lives during the Wall’s 28-year history.



Before the concrete monstrosity went up, more than 2.5 million Germans had gone to the Allied occupation zones in the west of the city, according to The Daily Telegraph. One of the reasons for constructing the wall was the fear that this flight would leave the eastern part of the city economically destitute. Yet it was also, in many ways, a barrier to keep things out, not least “dangerous” Western ideas about freedom of the ballot box, speech and expression. The 96 miles of guard-patrolled, barbed wire-topped fortification also served the purpose of keeping Western officials and journalists out of Communist Eastern Germany and the nations beyond, preventing them from exposing the continued abuses of power and suppression of individual rights there.



Though it seemed so intimidating and so permanent for so long, the Berlin Wall was only as strong as the Soviet Union and its puppet regimes that had conceived it. By the time Ronald Reagan famously issued his June 1987 plea at the Brandenburg to Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”, the bedrock of the U.S.S.R. was already cracking under the pressure of freedom movements in Eastern Europe, an unsustainable military budget, and a flagging economy, not to mention the flourishing of new political ideas within Moscow’s halls of power.



The fall of the Wall two and a half years later, on November 9, 1989, did not solve Germany’s problems, and, in fact, the convergence of two radically different populations presented many new challenges. However, its demise was the symbolic nail in the coffin of the U.S.S.R. and thus, half a century after its creation, the Berlin Wall invokes thoughts of hope, as much as sorrow.

4th of July Roundup

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Jim Cullen, "The Declaration of Independence and the American Dream," HNN, June 29, 2011

"America is a young country," people sometimes say. What they really seem to mean is: "the United States is a young nation." Such a statement makes some sense if one thinks of a political entity that came into existence circa July 4, 1776. It makes less sense when one considers that the Constitution that followed about a dozen years later is the oldest written functioning one in the world. Compared with a traditional nation-state like France or Spain, sure—the United States is a young nation, even if France has had a few republics since then.>>>

"American civil war re-enactment in South Yorkshire - in pictures," Guardian, July 4, 2011

Enthusiasts from all walks of life took part in re-enacting scenes from the American Civil War and in 'living history' events in the grounds of Cusworth Hall, near Doncaster, which are as authentic as possible.>>>

Peter Rothberg, "What Is Patriotism," Nation, July 1, 2011

The first sentence of The Nation's prospectus, dated July 6, 1865, promised "the maintenance and diffusion of true democratic principles in society and government," surely a patriotic sentiment, as was the magazine's name.

Since that time The Nation has attempted to represent and give voice to the best of American values and culture and has steadfastly resisted all efforts through the years to brand dissent as unpatriotic.>>>

Amy Bingham, "Almost a Fourth of Americans Do Not Know When the U.S. Declared Independence," ABC News, July 4, 2011

American Fourth of July traditions are tightly woven into the fabric of U.S. society, but the history of the country’s independence seems to have slipped through the seams.

A Marist poll released Friday shows that only 58 percent of Americans know when the country declared independence. Nearly a fourth of respondents said they were unsure and sixteen percent said a date other than 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was signed.>>>

Brian Handwerk, "Fourth of July: Nine Myths Debunked," National Geographic, July 4, 2011

Many time-honored patriotic tales turn out to be more fiction than fact. On the Fourth of July—today marked by a continent-spanning Google doodle—here's a look at some memorable myths from the birth of the United States.>>>

Grant to Support Research on Empirical, Conceptual, and Interpretive Work on the Interconnections between Religion and Innovation in Human Affairs

Randall Stephens

As many of the readers of this blog and Historically Speaking know, the Historical Society has launched the Religion and Innovation in Human Affairs (RIHA) Program. "It will provide up to $2 million in research support for empirical, conceptual, and interpretive work exploring interconnections between religion and innovation in history and human affairs."

Program leader Donald Yerxa says:

I have been working on the proposal for RIHA for a year. And now that it is beginning to be announced, I am gratified by the positive responses I’ve received from prominent scholars in several fields. One can get a sense of the intellectual seriousness and expansiveness of the project by looking at RIHA’s distinguished board of advisors. They include intellectual historian Wilfred McClay (UTenn-Chattanooga), historian of science William Shea (Padua), economic historian Patrick O’Brien (London School of Economics), archaeologist Ian Hodder (Stanford), geographer David Livingstone (Queen’s Belfast), and physician/medical ethicist William Hurlbut (Stanford Medical Center). RIHA is a terrific opportunity for the Historical Society. It puts the Society in the forefront of an exciting intellectual project, one that promises to shed light on how religion and innovation have interconnected.

The website, which I've been building for the last few weeks, is now nearly filled out. (We will add material on a "2013 Workshop" and "Funded Projects" later.)

Go to the site to download the Request for Proposals (deadline for pre-proposals is November 1, 2011), and view Application Information, members of the Distinguished Advisory Board, and the Program Staff and Contact Information.

The National Park Service Takes an Expansive Look at the Civil War

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Today's timely guest post comes from Todd Arrington, a history Ph.D. candidate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His dissertation looks at Civil War-era Republicans.

Todd Arrington

The 150th anniversary of the Civil War began on April 12 with a ceremony at Fort Sumter National Monument in South Carolina. Fort Sumter was, of course, the site of the war’s first military engagement. Today, the National Park Service (NPS) administers Fort Sumter, along with more than 75 other Civil War-related sites. These locations will all be very busy over the next four years as America commemorates the sesquicentennial of its most traumatic event.

When the nation celebrated the Civil War’s 100th anniversary in 1961-65, visitors to NPS sites like Manassas, Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and others learned a great deal about Civil War strategy and tactics. Park Rangers regaled them with tales of forced marches, frontal assaults, and unbelievable acts of valor. However, because “Lost Cause” ideology still dominated popular interpretation of the war, visitors did not learn why Northerners and Southerners had taken up arms in the first place. Difficult conversations about race, slavery, emancipation, and civil rights were taking place in academic circles (and increasingly on the evening news), but the National Park Service did not engage the public on these issues at Civil War battlefields and historic sites.

Over the past decade or so, the NPS has drastically changed how it interprets the Civil War. In 1999, Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., initiated a movement to require the Service to “interpret the unique role that slavery played in the cause of the conflict” at all Civil War sites. Not long after, David W. Blight published his brilliant and influential 2001 book Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press). This volume examines how and why the slavery issue was pushed to the background by postwar Northerners and Southerners alike and makes it clear that a narrative of “soldierly valor” that completely ignored slavery’s role in causing the war dominated Civil War history for decades. This at least partially explains why Rangers at NPS sites were so good at interpreting army maneuvers but completely ignored the issues that led to those very maneuvers ever being necessary.

Congressman Jackson’s initiative and Professor Blight’s book caused a fundamental re-thinking of how the NPS presents the Civil War era’s history to visitors. Today, the agency seems determined to avoid the mistakes of 1961-65. Those interested in the military history of the war still find much to excite them at NPS Civil War sites. However, Park Ranger interpretive programs also now deal with the issues that led to war. In other words, today slavery is openly examined, discussed, and debated at NPS sites. Understanding why the nation went to war with itself—and what the war’s stakes truly were—can only increase visitor appreciation of these sites and, ultimately, the sacrifices made upon those fields.

The NPS has just published a new official commemorative handbook for the 150th anniversary. Titled The Civil War Remembered, the book’s contents page makes it clear that this is not your father’s (or grandfather’s) Civil War history. Noted historians have contributed essays on nearly every aspect of the war itself as well as the pre- and post-war periods. James McPherson provides the Introduction; James Oliver Horton writes on “Confronting Slavery and Revealing the ‘Lost Cause.’” Ira Berlin tackles “Race in the Civil War Era,” while Allen C. Guelzo looks at “Emancipation and the Quest for Freedom.” Essays on the experiences of women, civilians, and the Border States appear. The war’s impact of westward expansion, industry, and economy are explained. Eric Foner contributes on “Reconstruction,” Drew Gilpin Faust on “Death and Dying,” and David W. Blight examines “The Civil War in American Memory.” Those still fascinated by the war’s military history will enjoy “The Military Experience” by Carol Reardon.

By publishing such an eclectic set of essays by noted scholars of the Civil War era, the NPS has demonstrated its commitment to a better understanding of the full scope of the era. This has not been done at the expense of interpreting military history; rather, the agency’s willingness to examine not only how the North and South conducted the war but also its causes only adds to a better public understanding of the war and its complicated legacy.

Ronald Reagan vs College Students, 1967

Randall Stephens

"NEW HAVEN, Dec. 4 [1967]--Gov. Ronald Reagan of California, who said he had never taught anything before except swimming and Sunday school, sat on a desk at Yale University today and conducted a class in American history." So reported the New York Times on the Gipper's visit to the ivy, where he was met with student protests and plenty of probing questions (December 6, 1967).

"Should homosexuals be barred from holding public office?" a senior from LA asked. The governor was surprised by the question. Rumors had been swirling that his administration had fired two staff members after their sexual preferences came to light. "It's a tragic

illness," said Reagan, after a pause. And, yes, he did think that homosexuality should remain illegal. Some students earlier had demanded that the school rescind its invitation to Reagan. The governor, who visited Yale as a Chubb fellow, gave his $500 honorarium to charity.

The confrontation between the 56-year-old governor and Yale students in 1967 speaks to the culture wars that roiled the decade and continue to reverberate to this day. In the video embedded here the students, with haircuts that make them look like clones of Rob from My Three Sons, square off with Reagan on poverty, race, and Vietnam.

The commemoration of the one-hundredth birthday of the 40th president brought with it the usual fanfare of radio specials, documentaries, guest editorials, and the like. The new HBO doc
Reagan, like PBS's American experience bio, spans the actor-turned-politician's career. (Watch the latter in full here.)

Lost in the telling, sometimes, is the scrappy, intensely ideological cold and cultural warrior from the 1960s and early 1970s. To correct that a bit, see the governor go at it with the somewhat nervous Yalies. Or, observe him lashing out against that "mess in Berkeley." (A clip from the HBO doc showing the governor dress down Berkeley administrators shows that pretty well.) The public memory version--rosy-cheeked, avuncular, sunny--overshadows that more fiery aspect of his personality and politics.

Americans remember their leaders as they choose. (The myths and legends are as stubborn as a Missouri mule.) But it is good to remind ourselves that the politicians and public figures we revere and/or study are rarely as one-dimensional as we'd sometimes think they are.

Lincoln and November 19, 1863… 1864… and 1865

Heather Cox Richardson

Seven score and seven years ago Abraham Lincoln brought forth on this continent a new sentiment, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Civil War historians know the Gettysburg Address so well that writing about it seems almost trite. We lecture about it; we teach it in discussion groups; we know it by heart.

It is hardly innovative to note that this famous speech marked a turning point in the meaning of the Civil War. With his masterful invocation of the Declaration of Independence, President Lincoln redefined the conflict. No longer would it be a fight solely to prevent the dismembering of the Union; from 1863 forward, it would be a struggle to guarantee that everyone born in America would have equal access to education, economic opportunity, and the law.
Lincoln’s declaration was truly a rededication of America. This, as much as anything, earned Lincoln a dominant place in the American pantheon. His words spoke directly to the true meaning of modern America.

But this belief in equality in America has never gone uncontested. It seems that Lincoln could have been speaking to the present when he warned at Gettysburg that the living must defend the legacy of the dead: “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

A year to the day after delivering the Gettysburg Address, on November 19, 1864, President Lincoln offered another epigram about America.

Among the blizzard of correspondence that crossed his desk that day was a brief note the President jotted to General William S. Rosecrans. In it, Lincoln stayed the execution of Confederate Major Enoch O. Wolf, convicted of murdering Major James Wilson and six members of the cavalry of the 3rd Missouri State Militia.

The President freely admitted he did not know anything of the circumstances of the case, and that the decision about Wolf’s future was in Rosecrans’s hands. He had suspended the sentence because he wanted to make sure Rosecrans understood that the general’s own inclinations were unimportant, and that he must do only what was best for the nation. “I wish you to do nothing merely for revenge,” Lincoln wrote, “but that what you may do, shall be solely done with reference to the security of the future.”

After 1863, Lincoln turned his masterful political skills solely toward securing equality for all Americans. As he counseled Rosecrans to do, he lost himself in his vision for the nation. Lincoln took hit after political hit, deflected opponents’ wrath with wry stories, and tried to find middle ground with his enemies. As he indicated to Rosecrans, he had only one goal: to make the American dream accessible to all Americans.

In the end, Lincoln was unable to blunt the hatred of the men who saw his defense of equality as an assault on civilization. By November 19, 1865, the President was dead. But he left behind him a new vision of America, and a charge to those born after the night that he, too, died for it: “that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.”

King George II & III, Colonial News, and a Royal Autopsy

Randall Stephens

On October 25, 1760 George III became King of Great Britain. News traveled slow, of course, and New Englanders didn't know about George II's (b. 1683) death or their new monarch for weeks.

Just how slow did people and information cross the Atlantic? In 1750 the school master and organist Gottlieb Mittelberger made the voyage from England to Philadelphia. He later wrote: "When the ships have for the last time weighed their anchors near the city of Kaupp [Cowes] in Old England, the real misery begins with the long voyage. For from there the ships, unless they have good wind, must often sail 8, 9, 10 to 12 weeks before they reach Philadelphia. But even with the best wind the voyage lasts 7 weeks."* Sailing technology had greatly improved in the 18th century. Still, slow transatlantic journeys and poor roads hindered the speed of information for decades. (See the map showing travel times circa. 1800.)

So, finally, in late December Bostonians read of the King's demise in the Boston Post: "Saturday arrived here Capt Partridge in about 6 weeks from London by whom we have the melancholly News of the Death of the most high, most mighty, and most excellent Monarch, GEORGE the Second, King of Great Britain . . . Defender of the Faith . . . . GEORGE the Third was proclaimed KING. . ." ("Partridge; Weeks; London; News; Death; Monarch; George," Boston Post-Boy, December 29, 1760, 2.)

The British American loyalty to King and Country sometimes gets lost in our popular view of colonials as patriots in the making. But as Brendan McConville writes in his The King's Three Faces: The Rise and Fall of Royal America, 1688-1776, "British North Americans championed their British king with emotional intensity in print, during public political rites, and in private conversation" (9).

Yet, before Americans pulled out the bunting and uncorked bottles to celebrate their new King, they had a bit of morbid curiosity to satisfy. How did George II die?

Fortunately, newspaper editors, keen to print what the people wanted, had the scoop on the Royal Autopsy. The Boston Post relayed the news from London: "In obedience to the order transmitted to us by the Right Hon. Vice-Chamberlain, We the under-signed have this day opened and examined the body of his Majesty . . ." They found "all parts contained in a natural and healthy state, except only the surface of each kidney there were some hydrides, or watery bladders, which however, we determined could not have been at this time of any material consequence." The regal heart, though, did not look so well. Among other abnormalities, they observed "a rupture in the right venticle." ("London, November 4," Boston Post-Boy, December 29, 1760, 2.) (For what passed as medicine in that day, see the amusing film The Madness of King George. The physicians in the movie are a hoot!)

Certainly, the 18th century is culturally distant from us today. This past is definitely a foreign country. Today, we travel at breakneck speeds and communicate across space and time with ease. Still, reading newspaper accounts like the above, makes the celebrity mongering of today and news as infotainment seem not entirely new.

150 Years Ago

Randall Stephens

The Chicago Tribune marks an interesting anniversary. It was 150 years ago on May 18, 1860, that the Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln for its national ticket. "From the perspective of 150 years," writes Richard Norton Smith, "it seems providential that Republicans should hold their 1860 convention in Chicago; that they should pass over their young party's most prominent figures, choosing instead a one-term congressman and unsuccessful Senate candidate who would go on to set the standard for presidential leadership." Lincoln, the rail splitter, took on a mythical air to supporters, a monstrous "black republican" aspect to his many critics.

This from Life and Speeches of Abraham Lincoln (New York, 1860):

LETTERS OF ACCEPTANCE OF MESSRS. LINCOLN AND HAMLIN.

The following is the correspondence between the officers of the Republican National Convention and the candidates thereof for President and Vice-President:

Chicago, May 18, 1860.

To the Honorable Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois:

Sir:—The representatives of the Republican party of the United States, assembled in convention at Chicago, have, this day, by a unanimous vote, selected you as the Republican candidate for the office of President of the United States, to be supported at the next election ; and the undersigned were appointed a committee of the convention to apprize you of this nomination, and respectfully to request that you will accept it. A declaration of the principles and sentiments adopted by the convention, accompanies this communication.

In the performance of this agreeable duty, we take leave to add our confident assurance that the nomination of the Chicago convention will be ratified by the suffrages of the people.

We have the honor to be, with great respect and regard, your friends and fellow-citizens . . .

Sir:—I accept the nomination tendered me by the convention over which you presided, and of which I am formally apprized in the letter of yourself and others, acting as a committee of the convention, for that purpose.

The declaration of principles and sentiments, which accompanies your letter, meets my approval; and it shall be my care not to violate or disregard it, in any part.

Imploring the assistance of Divine Providence, and with due regard to the views and feelings of all who were represented in the convention; to the rights of all the States and territories, and people of the nation; to the inviolability of the Constitution, and the perpetual union, harmony, and prosperity of all, I am most happy to co-operate for the practical success of the principles declared by the convention.

Your obliged friend and fellow-citizen,

Abraham Lincoln

The Moon Landing at 40

Randall Stephens

With the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon mission just around the corner--the landing was on July 20--it's a good time to reflect on what that meant and still means. In 1969/70, some rhapsodized about the power of human innovation and the horizon of exploration. With tongue firmly planted in cheek, playwright Arthur Miller wrote in the July 21 edition of the New York Times:

There are two schools of thought about the moon landing. One heralds it as the start of a new Age of Discovery like the period that began in 1492. The other regards it as a distraction from social problems. Few, though, feel anything but pride in the men who step over the astral frontier; even the crabbers are secretly envious of them.

I think it's a great thing for all of us. After the moon we undoubtedly will put men on other planets further and further away from Earth. The climax, which I doubt anyone alive will witness, will come when a scientific expedition finally lands on 125th Street or the North Side of Waterbury, Connecticut.

On the run in Algiers, Eldridge Cleaver, Information Minister of the Black Panther party, unleashed a torrent of criticism. On July 20 he told New York Times reporters that the moon landing program was a "misuse of public funds." Cleaver didn't see "what benefit mankind will have from two astronauts landing on the moon while people are being murdered in Vietnam," and starving in the U.S. Politicians like Nixon, "number one pig," were to blame

Others, like Norman Mailer--razor-tongue gonzo journalist, premature curmudgeon, and egomaniac--used the moon landing to rant against America's banal technophilia. He wrote in Of a Fire on the Moon: "Armstrong and Aldrin were to do an EVA that night. EVA stood for Extra Vehicle Activity, and that was presumably a way to describe the most curious steps ever taken. It is one thing to murder the language of Shakespeare - another to be unaware how rich was the

victim. Future murders stood in the shadow of the acronyms. It was as if on the largest stage ever created, before an audience of half the earth, a man of modest appearance would walk to the centre, smile tentatively at the footlights, and read a page from a data card. The audience would groan and Beckett and Warhol give their sweet smiles."*

Now to the present... In the Guardian Christopher Riley has written "The Moon Walkers: Twelve Men Who Have Visited Another World." Maybe his piece indicates that the landing is no longer a sounding board for politics?

The 12 members of the most exclusive club in human history had many things in common.

All came from a highly technical background and all but one studied aeronautical or astronautical engineering. Growing up, many had been Boy Scouts and even more were active members of their University fraternities. They all went on to study for further degrees – many at military test pilot schools – and almost all of them saw active service in cold war skies, often flying nuclear weapons behind enemy lines.

Popular Mechanics features a collection of essays on all things 40th-anniversary-moon-landing related. Highlights include: "Is America's Space Administration Over the Hill? Next-Gen NASA"; "Giant Leaps: Apollo 11 Alums Reflect 40 Years Later at MIT Conference"; and "Exploring the Moon: Apollo 11, The Untold Story."

For an excellent documentary on the moon landing and space race, see Race to the Moon (PBS, 2005).