Harper’s Weekly – February 23, 1861

Harper's Weekly archives ^ | February 23, 1861

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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[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: May 2025.
Reading: Self-assigned. Recommendations made and welcomed.

Posting history, in reverse order

https://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:homerjsimpson/index?tab=articles 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

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3935007/posts

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Chantrey’s Washington – 1-2
Editorials – 1, 3
The Lounger – 3-4
Humors of the Day – 4-5
The Officers’ Quarters at Fort Sumter – 6
Good-By to Fort Sumter – 6-8
Rev. Nicholas Murray, D.D. – 8-9
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, Ch XIX-XX – 9-11
Domestic Intelligence – 11-12
Foreign News – 12
Fort Pickens, Florida – 12-13, 15
Fort Jefferson, Tortugas – 12, 14
“Har olim meminisse juvabit” (or something like that) – 15
President Davis and Vice-President Stephens – 15-16
The Black Spot – 16-17
A Day’s Ride: A Life’s Romance, By Charles Lever, Ch XXXVIII – 17-19
Not Up to the Spirit of Our Institutions – 19

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from February 19 (reply #17).

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3935007/posts#17

Bruce Catton, The Coming Fury

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from February 22 (reply #27).

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3935007/posts#27

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Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from February 18 (reply #11).

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3935007/posts#11

David Herbert Donald, Lincoln

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from December 20, 1860 (reply #38)

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3915625/posts#38

Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, Volume One

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Joseph Holt to Major Robert Anderson
https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2016/07/joseph-holt-to-major-robert-anderson.html

Major Thomas J. Jackson to Mary Anna Morrison Jackson
https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2014/02/major-thomas-j-jackson-to-mary-anna_17.html

Captain Gustavus V. Fox to Montgomery Blair
https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2016/09/captain-gustavus-v-fox-to-montgomery.html

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Big crop of posts to start off the week:

Bruce Catton, reply #3
Doris Kearns Goodwin, #4
David Herbert Donald, #5
U.S. Grant, #6
George Templeton Strong, #7
Three letters, #8

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from February 23 (reply #4).

Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Taken [by Alexander Gardner] during President-elect Lincoln's first sitting in Washington, D.C., the day after his arrival by train.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photographs_of_Abraham_Lincoln

[BroJoeK]

"Bruce Catton, The Coming Fury"

"Now there were seven states in the Southern Confederacy, and the secessionist tide had reached its crest; as a matter of fact, it had for the moment expended all of its force.
There would be no more departures based simply on the belief that the election of a Republican President embodied an unendurable menace to Southern institutions.
Eight of the fifteen slave states remained in the Union, and none of them would go out unless and until the Federal government, or the Confederate government, or the two of them together, brought some new element into the equation.
The South had not acted as a unit.
Only the cotton states had broken away.
The new "Southern nation" included only about half of the South."

Worth remembering.
It means that winning over the remaining Union slave states will be Jefferson Davis' first priority, especially regarding events at Fort Sumter.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

It means that winning over the remaining Union slave states will be Jefferson Davis' first priority, especially regarding events at Fort Sumter.

He really needs Kentucky to secede. That would provide a significant physical barrier - the Ohio River - between the two sections.

[colorado tanker]

I know that Lincoln regretted his entry into Washington and that many if not most don't think there really was a plot. But I disagree.

The problem is that Baltimore had one train station for lines to the North and another for lines South. Passengers had to transit between the two on the surface. Pinkerton said there were assassins assigned to get into the crowd and try to get close enough to kill Lincoln. Maryland was a much different state in 1860 than today. The state would have seceded if not restrained by trickery and force.

So, in my opinion Pinkerton's plan was very prudent.

And, who made fun of Lincoln for this? Slavers and Copperheads, who never had anything nice to say about him anyhow.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from February 18 (reply #9, part 2).

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3935007/posts#9

Bruce Catton, The Coming Fury

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from February 24 (reply #10).

Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Mary Chesnut’s Diary, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Brigadier-General Albert Sidney Johnston to William Preston Johnston
https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2014/08/brigadier-general-albert-sidney.html

Brigadier-General Albert Sidney Johnston to Major Fitz-John Porter
https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2014/08/brigadier-general-albert-sidney_14.html