Posted on 12/01/2017 4:55:21 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
First session: November 21, 2015. Last date to add: Sometime in the future.
Reading: Self-assigned. Recommendations made and welcomed. To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by reply or freepmail.
* “. . . Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap . . .”
That’s not exactly how I remember that line.
** Financial panic! – continued. Election results from various states, including wacky Kansas.
Army wagon trains heading for Utah have been attacked by Indians. “The speeches of the Mormon leaders, as reported in the Deseret News, are full of defiance.”
News of the Indian mutiny is also reported.
Fascinating. Thanks.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
Continued from June 12 (reply #21).
Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America
I have heard good things about Guelzo's book but have not read it. There are so many good Civil War books.
The analysis of the debates themselves is great. Very detailed, as you might expect.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
I looked up the twitter account for Trinity Church (@TrinityWallSt) so I can send them links to George’s diary entries that concern Trinity. I saw that one of their tweets from Friday starts out, “How Can Queerness Inform Church Activism?”. Poor George would not know what to make of that at all.
We do live in crazy times!
Continued from November 7 (reply #20) .
Nicole Etcheson, Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era
December 8. Trustees of Columbia College met yesterday. That board is fast sinking back into its normal condition of chronic coma, stupor, and lethargy, after a brief period of unnatural liveliness, produced by stimulants. Another Gibbs controversy must be got up, or the College will doze off for another hundred years. . . .
Lamentable to relate, moreover, the faculty contemplate Peck’s appointment as instructor in drawing, so Jack Ehninger’s game is up. Probably he is ill-qualified for a large (if not the larger) portion of the course proposed, which is mathematical and industrial rather than aesthetic.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
Note: "perish in blood and fire", not "withdraw in peaceful, constitutionally valid disunion."
Everyone then understood that secession meant war, nobody pretended otherwise.
It’s easy for a hothead to spout of. At the time, no one knew how truly godawful the Civil War would be in death, suffering and destruction.
As for what citizens imagined of a future war, it seems some did anticipate "blood and fire", for the other side.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
Interesting opinions on the Utah Mormons. Many Americans were willing to declare war on the Mormons for some decades. Brigham Young fled to Utah when it was still part of Mexico, in order to get away from the US.
Our diarist is referring to the Utah War. The Mormons fled persecution in the US to the northern part of Mexico only to find it absorbed in the US at the end of the Mexican War. The Mormon practice of polygamy was considered barbaric and another pernicious result of Douglas’s popular sovereignty. Eventually even Douglas condemned its practice in the territories. Buchanan was dead set against it and was determined to bring Utah into lawful US administration. An expedition was dispatched from Fort Leavenworth to escort a new non-Mormon Governor. The expedition is now in winter camp in a bleak part of SW Wyoming near Fort Bridger, which the Mormons had burned down. The force had been weakened to leave enough troops at Leavenworth to deal with the Kansas troubles surrounding the Lecompton Constitution. How often have we seen the Army tasked to do too much with too little?
The country between Fort Bridger and Salt Lake is daunting, to put it mildly. The Wasatch is an incredible physical barrier.
December 16. Walked up, stopped at Society Library in University Place, and read the reviews. Details of late performances in and about Delhi, Lucknow, and Cawnpore are novel and interesting. The blowing of a Sepoy from the muzzle of a twelve-pounder must be a curious process.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
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