[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.

Link to previous Harper’s Weekly thread

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Welcome To the Prince of Wales – 1-2
Editorials – 1, 3
The Lounger – 3-4
Humors of the Day – 4
The Firemen’s Parade – 4, 6
The Ball in Honor of the Prince of Wales – 4-5, 12
A Dream: The New York Belle’s Courtship and Marriage with the Prince of Wales – 5
The Loss of the Steamship “Conaught” – 7-8
A Day’s Ride: A Life’s Romance, by Charles Lever. Ch. XII – 8-10
Domestic Intelligence – 10
Foreign News – 10-11
Sub Rosa – 11
The Uncommercial Traveler, by Charles Dickens – 13-14
The Steamer’s Midnight Gun – 14
A Loss ‘Longshore – 14-15
Correspondence – 15
Grief is Not Told by Words – 15
The War in Italy – 16-18
The Saint and the Hero – 18

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from October 10 (reply #8).

Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals

[C19fan]

I wonder if His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales made visits to bordellos on his visit through America.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Major David Hunter to Abraham Lincoln, October 20, 1860

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas,
Oct. 20th 1860.—

Private and
Confidential.

Dear Sir: Your success and safety being identified with the great Republican cause, the cause of peace, union and conservatism; must be my apology for addressing you.—

On a recent visit to the east, I met a lady of high character, who had been spending part of the summer among her friends and relatives in Virginia. She informed me that a number of young men in Virginia had bound themselves, by oaths the most solemn, to cause your assassination, should you be elected. Now Sir, you may laugh at this story, and really it does appear too absurd to repeat, but I beg you to recollect, that on “the institution” these good people are most certainly demented, and being crazy, they should be taken care of, to prevent their doing harm to themselves or others.— Judicious, prompt and energetic action on the part of your Secretary of War, will no doubt secure your own safety, and the peace of the country,

I have the honor to be,

Very Sincerely,
Your mo. ob.

David Hunter,
U. S. Army—

Hon. A. Lincoln,
Springfield, Ill.

P. S. I had the pleasure of meeting you in early days at Chicago, and again at the great Whig Convention at Springfield in 1840.

SOURCE: Lincoln, Abraham. Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833 to 1916: David Hunter to Abraham Lincoln, Saturday,Warns of assassination plot. 1860. Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/item/mal0407400/.

civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com

David Hunter Wikipedia page

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from October 19 (reply #19).

The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Brigadier-General Benjamin F. Butler to Blanche Butler, Sunday October 22, 1860

LOWELL, Oct. 22, 1860

MY GOOD GIRL: You know that I am not a constant correspondent, but I am now taking your mother's place. You need not feel alarm about your mother's eyes, as I believe the weakness to be temporary only. At least she was quite well enough last Friday evening to go with me to the Prince's Ball1 at Boston. Aunt Harriet went with us; both were much pleased, as ladies always are, with beautiful dresses, fine music, and a gay throng. I was obliged to go down to the review of the Military.2 I suppose you hardly saw the Prince; as a sight you have not lost much. He looks somewhat like your cousin Hal Read, but is not quite so intelligent in the face.

Pray do not pain me by hearing that you are homesick. A girl of good sense like you to be homesick! Never say it. Never feel it, never think it. The change, the novelty of your situation, will soon wear away, and with your duties well done, as I know they will be, you will be sustained by the pride of a well-earned joy in your return. You say the girls, your associates, seem strange to you. May they not find the same strange appearance in you? You say you think they do not like you much, and you do not like them much. Is not this because of the strangeness, and because you do not understand and know each other. It is one of the objects I desired to gain by sending you to Georgetown that you should see other manners, other customs and ways, than those around you at home. However good these may be, the difficulty is that one used to a single range of thoughts and modes of life soon comes to think all others inferior, while in fact they may be better, and are only different. This is a provincialism, and one of which I am sorry to say that Massachusetts people are most frequently guilty.

By no means give up your own manners simply because others of your associates are different. Try and see which are best, but do not cling to your own simply because they are yours. In the matter of pronunciation of which you wrote, hold fast your own, subject to your teachers. Do not adopt the flat drawl of the South. That is a patois. Avoid it. All educated people speak a language alike. T’is true Mr. Clay, said cheer for chair, but that from a defect of early association. Full, distinct, and clear utterance with a kindly modulated voice, will add a new accomplishment to a young lady, who is as perfect as Blanche in the eye of

FATHER

_______________

1 H. R. H. the Prince of Wales, then on a visit to the United States.

2 General Butler was Brigadier General of the Massachusetts militia, having received his commission in 1857.

SOURCE: Jessie Ames Marshall, Editor, Private and Official Correspondence of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler During the Period of the Civil War, Volume 1: April 1860 – June 1862, p. 3-4

civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from September 29 (reply #3).

Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1859-1865, edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from October 16 (reply #11).

With Lincoln in the White House: Letters, Memoranda, and Other Writings of John G. Nicolay, 1860-1865, edited by Michael Burlingame

[Homer_J_Simpson]

John Albert Broadus is a Baptist pastor and president of a theological seminary at Greenville. He will become chaplain of Robert E. Lee’s army.

John Albert Broadus to Miss Cornelia Taliaferro, October 25, 1860

GREENVILLE, S. C., Oct. 25, 1860: We now number thirty-one students, adding one more from Mississippi to a statement which will probably appear in the “Herald” of to-day. We feel encouraged by the increase, and by the general character of the students, and the spirit they manifest. My class in New Testament Greek numbers sixteen. They are nearly all graduates of colleges and universities, but the standard of graduation, and often of instruction, is deplorably low in most of the institutions of the land, and I find it necessary to spend a good part of the session in teaching Greek in general, classic Greek, which they ought to have learned at college. But I can better afford to do this since they go over a large portion of the New Testament in the English class. The difference in other theological seminaries is, not that they have students better prepared, but that they make little or no effort to remedy the evil. . . I have two of last year's students reading, once a week, some selections from the Greek Fathers; and Brother Boyce is doing something similar this year, with some of the Latin Fathers. This would be impracticable in a seminary where there was a curriculum, the same for all. . .

I am glad to say that my health continues about as good as in September. If I can be careful still, I trust I shall be able to go steadily through the session. But it is not easy to be careful.

Please remember me most respectfully to your honored grandmother, to your uncle, and all the family. Mr. Barbour may be interested in the opinion (though of course he is better posted on the whole subject than I am) which I formed upon the statements of gentlemen here, that in the event of Lincoln's election, South Carolina will certainly not secede alone, but will gladly join any one other State, and that her secession leaders will move heaven and earth to aid their sympathizers in Alabama and Virginia with the hope of such a result. Very many people here are as much opposed to a dissolution of the Union as you or I, but there can be little doubt that a majority of the voters in the State would be in favor of seceding with any other State.

Two or three books that I think would please you are, “Five Sermons on St. Paul,” by A. Monod (from the French); “Memoir of Kingman Nott”; “Angus' Bible Handbook.” All small volumes.

SOURCE: Archibald Thomas Robertson, Life and Letters of John Albert Broadus, p. 176-177

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