Posted on 09/03/2019 5:01:48 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Free Republic University, Department of History presents U.S. History, 1855-1860: Seminar and Discussion Forum
Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott, Lincoln-Douglas, Harper’s Ferry, the election of 1860, secession – all the events leading up to the Civil War, as seen through news reports of the time and later historical accounts
First session: November 21, 2015. Last date to add: Sometime in the future.
Reading: Self-assigned. Recommendations made and welcomed.
Posting history, in reverse order
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by reply or freepmail.
Thanks for posting these.
That Douglas feller was sure long-winded.
Get him started on popular sovereignty and he could go on for hours. He thinks its the greatest thing since canned beer. Which they didn’t have in 1859, so the greatest thing ever. If he can just convince enough southerners and Republicans of the greatness of popular sovereignty he will have a clear path to the White House next year.
Yeah, you gotta figure Douglas for the front runner. That Lincoln guy gave him a good race, but probably was just a flash in the pan. Doubt he’ll even get the Republican nomination.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
Americans using legal process to attack their political enemies? Shocking, positively shocking.
Continued from June 17 (reply #6). The letter to George Mason Graham quoted in the first paragraph of this excerpt was written on this date. The entire letter is posted in the following reply.
James Lee McDonough, William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country, A Life
LANCASTER, OHIO, Sept. 7, 1859.
DEAR SIR: I am now in full possession of all documents sent to my address at Leavenworth including the papers containing the printed proceedings of the Board of Supervisors of August 2. I have written to you twice at Washington, but suppose you are not well arrived, and as I find it best somewhat to qualify my offer to come East, and visit with you the Virginia Institute, I write you again.
I have written Governor Wickliffe that I will be at Saint Louis, Oct. 20 and at Baton Rouge Nov. 5, prepared to meet the committee of supervisors, or the academic faculty at any time thereafter he may appoint. But it may be more convenient for that committee to meet at once in Alexandria or at the institute [Seminary] itself, so that I can be there at any date after Nov. 5, which may prove agreeable to all parties.
To-morrow I will go to Frankfort, Kentucky, to be present at the opening of the session of the Kentucky Military Institute and I will remain long enough to see for myself as much of the practical workings of that institute as possible. Colonel Morgan in charge will, I know, take pleasure in making me acquainted with all details that I may desire to learn.
From Kentucky I shall return to this place, and about the 25th inst. I will go to Chicago, where I expect to meet Captain McClellan of the Illinois Central Railroad, who a few years since visited many of the European establishments, and who can therefore give me much information. I will then go to Leavenport and afterward St. Louis delaying at each point a short while, but you may rest perfectly certain that I will be on hand, when the committee meets and that I will acquire as much practical knowledge of organization as possible in the meantime.
I hope you will find it both pleasant and convenient to visit the Virginia Military Institute and that you will make inquiries that will be of service - thus ascertain the exact price of each article of dress, and furniture furnished the cadets, price of each text-book - how supplied, cost of black-board, drawing-board, mathematical instruments, drawing-paper, paints, pencils, etc. The name of the merchant who supplied them. Have they a single store, like an army suttler who keeps supplies on hand, and whose prices are fixed by the Academic Board, or does their quartermaster provide by wholesale and distribute to cadets charging them? Are all cadets marched to mess hall? Do they have regular reveille, tattoo and taps?
Can we not select a dress more becoming, quite as economical, and better adapted to climate than the grey cloth of West Point and Virginia?
It occurs to me that climate will make it almost necessary to make modifications of dress, period of study, drill, and even dates of examinations. This may all be done without in the least impairing that systematic discipline which I suppose it is the purpose to engraft on the usual course of scientific education.
Ascertain if possible, the average annual expense of each cadet - clothing, mess hall, books, paper, etc., lights fire, and washing and tuition.
I will try and ascertain similar elements in Kentucky and elsewhere, so that we may begin with full knowledge of the experience of all others. Should you write me here the letters will be so forwarded as to meet me with as little delay as possible.
SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, Editor, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 37-9
WILLARD'S HOTEL, WASHINGTON, Sept. 7, 1859.
DEAR SIR: On arriving here night before last I had the pleasure to receive from Mr. Richard Smith your two favors of the 15th and 20th of August, and Major Buell, with whom I have not been able to meet until this morning at breakfast, has shown me yours to him of the 4th inst. which he was in the act of opening when I joined him, and from which he has allowed me to take a memorandum of the dates of your proposed movements. The information contained in your letter to Buell has been of considerable relief to me, for whilst it would be very gratifying to me to meet with you I did not see any good commensurate with the expense, time, risk, and trouble to yourself, to result from your coming all the way here merely to confer with me when it was not in my power to specify any particular day when I would be in the city, as the business which brings me here lies down in Virginia, whither I go tomorrow morning, if the violent cold under which I am now suffering shall permit, and the consummation of it is contingent on the action of a half dozen others than myself.
I had desired very much, if it suited your convenience, that you could visit and see into the interior life of the school at Lexington, Virginia, where everything would be shown to you with the most cordial frankness by Col. Smith, who has taken the warmest and most earnest interest in our effort, and who writes to me of you, sir, in very high terms of congratulatory appreciation, and where one of your classmates, Major Gilham, is a member of the Academic Board.
In the event that this will not be practicable to you, as I infer from the programme laid down in your note to Major Buell it will not be, I shall write to Col. Smith asking him to give us all necessary information of details not contained in the “Rules and Regulations” the preparation of the code of which for our school is confined to the joint action of “the faculty” and “A Committee consisting of Messrs. Manning, Graham, and Whittington.” I would rather have had the Board adopt for the present the code of the Virginia school, because under the Governor's resolution, about which he did not confer with me beforehand, it cannot well be done until on or about the 1st of January, when it ought to be done in advance. I do not see therefore that we can do otherwise than adopt, at first, the code of that school. I have no apprehension but that whatever you, Mr. Manning and myself may agree upon, will be acceptable to all the rest.
In regard to “furnishing” the building there will not be much trouble. My idea will be for each cadet to furnish his own requisites in the way of room furniture, as at West Point. There will then be nothing to furnish but the class-rooms, the kitchen and mess hall as I believe I mentioned to you before, the statement in the Governor's advertisement that “furnished apartments would be provided in the building for the professors,” was an error of our not very clear-headed secretary. The intention of the Board was simply to apprize all interested that there were no separate dwellings for the professors. . .
I met with Mr. F. W. Smith1 in Richmond and travelled with him to this place. He is about sailing for Europe to be back the 1st of December. All my anticipations of him fully realized. I cannot close without mentioning that in a visit to the convent in Georgetown yesterday my sister (Mary Bernard) poured out her joy on learning (to do which she enquired with great eagerness) that the superintendent of our school was the husband of that “one of all the girls who have passed through our hands here that I believed I loved best and was the most deeply interested in.”2
In regard to “authority and control,” although it is not yet exactly so, I hope the next session of the legislature will place our school on precisely the same footing as the Virginia school, making the superintendent the commanding officer of the corps of cadets, giving to him and the other members of the Academic Board, rank in the State's military organization.
1 The newly elected commandant of cadets and professor of chemistry. — Ed.
2 Mrs. Sherman was educated in a Georgetown, D.C., convent in which General Graham's sister was a teacher and later Mother Superior. — Ed.
SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, Editor, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 34-7
CHAMBERSBURG, PA., Sept. 8, 1859.
DEAR WIFE AND CHILDREN, ALL, — I write to say that we are all well, and are getting along as well as we could reasonably expect. It now appears likely that Martha and Anne will be on their way home in the course of this month, but they may be detained to a little later period. I do not know what to advise about fattening the old spotted cow, as much will depend on what you have to feed her with; whether your heifers will come in or not next spring; also upon her present condition. You must exercise the best judgment you have in the matter, as I know but little about your crops. I should like to know more as soon as I can. I am now in hopes of being able to send you something in the way of help before long. May God abundantly bless you all! Ellen, I want you to be very good.
Sept. 9. Bell's letter of .'30th August to Watson is received.
Sept. 20, 1859. All well. Girls will probably start for home soon.
SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 532
WEST ANDOVER, Sept. 8, 1859.
FRIEND HENRIE, — I yesterday evening received yours of September 2, and I not only hasten to reply, but to lay its contents before those who are interested. . . . Through those associations which I formed in Canada, I am able to reach each individual member at the shortest notice by letter. I am devoting my whole time to our company business. Shall immediately go out organizing and raising funds. From what I even had understood, I had supposed you would not think it best to commence opening the coal banks before spring, unless circumstances should make it imperative. However, I suppose the reasons are satisfactory to you, and if so, those who own smaller shares ought not to object. I hope we shall be able to get on in season some of those old miners of whom I wrote you. Shall strain every nerve to accomplish this. You may be assured that what you say to me will reach those who may be benefited thereby, and those who would take stock, in the shortest possible time; so don't fail to keep me posted.
There is a general dearth of news in this region. By the way. I notice, through the “Cleveland Leader,” that “Old Brown” is again figuring in Kansas. Well, every dog must have his day, and he will no doubt find the end of his tether. Did you ever know of such a high-handed piece of business? However, it is just like him. The Black Republicans, some of them, may wink at such things; but I tell you, friend Henrie, he is too salt a dose for many of them to swallow, and I can already see symptoms of division in their ranks. We are bound to roll up a good stiff majority for our side this fall. I will send you herewith the item referred to, which I clipped from the “Leader.”
Give regards to all, and believe me faithfully yours,
JOHN.
SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 547-8
Sept. 8, 1859.
DEAR BELLE, — You can guess how I long to see you only by knowing how you wish to see me. I think of you all day, and dream of you at night. I would gladly come home and stay with you always but for the cause which brought me here, — a desire to do something for others, and not live wholly for my own happiness. I am at home, five miles north of H. F., in an old house on the Kennedy farm, where we keep some things, and four of us sleep here. I came here to be alone; Oliver has just come in and disturbed me. I was at Chambersburg a few days ago, and wrote you a line from there. The reason I did not write sooner was that there are ten of us here, and all who know them think they are with father, and have an idea what he is at; so you see if each and every one writes, all his friends will know where we all are; if one writes (except on business) then all will have a right to. It is now dark, and I am in this old house all alone; but I have some good company, for I have just received your letter of August 30, and you may as well think I am glad to hear from you. You may kiss the baby a great many times a day for me; I am thinking of you and him all the time.
SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 542-3
I feel for the guy.
Wrote wife, F. B. S[anborn], Frederick Douglass, James N. Gloucester, J. W. L[oguen]; also came on the 20th of September.
SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 520-1
PARTS UNKNOWN, Sept. 9, 1859.
DEAR MOTHER, BROTHER, AND SISTERS, — Knowing that you all feel deeply interested in persons and matters here, I feel a wish to write all I can that is encouraging, feeling that we all need all the encouragement we can get while we are travelling on through eternity, of which every day is a part. I can only say that we are all well, and that our work is going on very slowly, but we think satisfactorily. I would here say that I think there is no good reason why any of us should be discouraged; for if we have done but one good act, life is not a failure. I shall probably start home with Martha and Anna about the last of this month. Salmon, you may make any use of the sugar things you can next year. I hope you will all keep a stiff lip, a sound pluck, and believe that all will come out right in the end. Nell, I have not forgotten you, and I want you should remember me. Please, all write. Direct to John Henrie, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 547
It is more than a little disconcerting to read such a matter of fact description of the slave trade, which apparently was highly lucrative. It was all considered so normal in that region back in that time.
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