Genius of Place

by Justin Martin

  175 “It is humiliating to me, Sir”: FLO to Central Park board of commissioners, January 22, 1861, reprinted in Papers, 3:297–319.

  175 a reporter for the New York World: New York World, March 11, 1861.

  175 “The pitching appeared”: New York Times, October 9, 1860.

  176 The reporter counted about forty: New York World, March 11, 1861.

  Chapter 15: In Search of a Mission

  178 He considered joining the navy: FLO to JO, April 16, 1861.

  179 “the most powerful organization”: William Maxwell, Lincoln’s Fifth Wheel: The Political History of the U.S. Sanitary Commission (New York: Longmans, Green, 1956), preface by Allan Nevins, viii.

  180 One of these outfits: Charles Stillé, History of the United States Sanitary Commission (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1866), 41–42.

  180 “Without concert of effort”: Maxwell, Lincoln’s Fifth Wheel, 1.

  181 Bellows assembled a board: Ibid., 8–9.

  182 “I approve the above”: Ibid., 8.

  182 “good big work”: FLO to Bertha Olmsted, January 28, 1862.

  183 “Bloody 11th Camp C”: FLO to MPO, June 28, 1861.

  184 On his first night: Ibid.

  184 Olmsted visited another nineteen camps: Stillé, History of the United States Sanitary Commission, 85.

  185 “It is now hardly possible”: Ibid., 86.

  185 constantly battling the flies: FLO to MPO, July 2, 1861.

  186 “cheap & nasty French”: Ibid.

  186 “Lincoln has no element”: FLO to JO, August 3, 1861.

  186 “The official machinery”: FLO to MPO, July 2, 1861.

  186 “Give me some good news”: Ibid.

  187 “A large portion”: FLO to William Cullen Bryant, July 31, 1861, reprinted in The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, vol. 4, Defending the Union (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1986), 133.

  187 “They, too, were dirty”: FLO, “Report on the Demoralization of the Volunteers,” September 5, 1861, reprinted in ibid., 165.

  189 The first draft . . . hasn’t survived: Ibid., 15.

  189 “imbecility of the government”: FLO to MPO, September 7, 1861.

  189 “Did the government really”: FLO, “Report on the Demoralization of the Volunteers,” September 5, 1861, reprinted in Papers, 4:172.

  190 “So it will become”: FLO to JO, September 12, 1861.

  190 twenty-six surgeons and eighty assistants: Stillé, History of the United States Sanitary Commission, 116.

  190 5,000 vaccines: Maxwell, Lincoln’s Fifth Wheel, 110.

  190 “a self-satisfied, supercilious”: FLO to John Murray Forbes, December 15, 1861, reprinted in Papers, 4:240.

  191 McClellan’s private quarters in Washington: Details of meeting with General McClellan drawn largely from FLO to JO, September 12, 1861.

  191 “His mind is patient”: Henry Bellows to James McKim, August 8, 1864.

  191 “a severe judge”: Bellows to Eliza Nevins Bellows, February 25, 1863.

  191 “run the machine”: George Templeton Strong, Diary of the Civil War, 1860–1865 (New York: Macmillan, 1962), 188.

  192 “Dear Charley”: FLO to JCO, October 17, 1861.

  192 It wasn’t until six months: FLO to Bellows, December 20, 1861, reprinted in Papers , 4:242.

  192 “I have discovered”: Ibid.

  192 It was October 28, 1861: Genealogy, FLO Papers, Library of Congress.

  192 “We have a girl”: FLO to Brace, November 8, 1861.

  194 “I have, I suppose”: FLO to Bellows, June 1, 1861, reprinted in Papers, 4:118.

  194 “I shall go to Port Royal”: FLO to JO, February 24, 1862.

  195 “thoughts about the management”: FLO to Abraham Lincoln, March 8, 1862.

  195 “A hostile force”: FLO letter, New York Times, November 29, 1861, signed “Yeoman.”

  195 didn’t change a single word: FLO to JO, February 19, 1862.

  195 circulated similar petitions: Laura Wood Roper, “Frederick Law Olmsted and the Port Royal Experiment,” Journal of Southern History (August 1965).

  195 “keep up a steady”: FLO to Bellows, February 15, 1862, reprinted in Papers, 4:273.

  Chapter 16: In the Republic of Suffering

  196 “As for the Sanitary Commission”: FLO to JO, April 19, 1862.

  198 Union soldiers desperately ill: Charles Stillé, History of the United States Sanitary Commission (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1866), 154.

  199 “a death-place for scores”: Hospital Transports: A Memoir of the Embarkation of the Sick and Wounded from the Peninsula of Virginia in the Summer of 1862 (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1863), 24.

  199 viewed as a stimulant: Interview, JM with Terry Reimer, director of research, National Museum of Civil War Medicine, May 7, 2009.

  199 oldfangled name for hydrochloric acid: E-mail on June 16, 2009, from Michael Flannery, medical historian, University of Alabama at Birmingham.

  200 “Poor, pale, emaciated, shivering”: Hospital Transports, 33.

  200 “sea fashion”: Ibid., 18.

  201 rubbing a little powdered opium: George Adams, “Fighting for Time,” in The Image of War, 1861–1865, vol. 4 (Washington, DC: National Historical Society, 1957).

  201 “catching for mother”: FLO to Henry Bellows, June 3, 1862, reprinted in Papers , 4:357.

  201 “Give him back”: Katharine Prescott Wormeley, The Other Side of War: On the Hospital Transports with the Army of the Potomac (Gansevoort, NY: Corner House Historical Publications, 1998), 121.

  201 Some of the women: See also “The Letters of Harriet Douglas Wetten,” published in Wisconsin Magazine of History (Winter 1964–1965): 131–151.

  202 “He is small”: Wormeley, Other Side of War, 62–63.

  202 One Sunday in late May: Hospital Transports, 85–88.

  203 “Will you please engage”: FLO to Bellows, June 13, 1862, reprinted in Papers, 4:371.

  203 “I need not say”: FLO to MPO, June 11, 1862.

  204 “without beds, without straw”: FLO to Bellows, June 3, 1862, reprinted in Papers , 4:357.

  204 “not only more whimpering”: Hospital Transports, 120.

  204 “In this republic of suffering”: Ibid., 115.

  205 “the best army the world”: FLO to Abraham Lincoln, July 6, 1862, reprinted in Papers, 4:393.

  206 “The summer’s work has”: FLO to Bellows, July 13, 1862, reprinted in Papers, 4:404.

  206 “the most important contribution”: Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, vol. 1 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913), 211.

  206 Charles Dickens: FLO, The Cotton Kingdom (New York: Da Capo Press, 1996), xxvi.

  207 Karl Marx: Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1, pt. 3, chap. 8, n. 17.

  207 Charles Darwin: Speech by William Erasmus Darwin, Charles’s son, delivered at Cambridge in 1909.

  207 606,000 words: FLO, The Cotton Kingdom, xxxi.

  207 $1,400, adjusted for inflation: Ibid., 13.

  207 his “impression” had hardened: Ibid., 8.

  207 “It is said that”: Ibid., 3.

  208 Great Britain was surprisingly ambivalent: Characterization based on e-mail to JM dated June 17, 2009, from Sir Brian Harrison, history professor emeritus at Oxford University, and interview on July 2, 2009, JM with Charles Hubbard, professor of history at Lincoln Memorial University.

  208 “What would happen”: Congressional Globe, 35th Cong., 1st sess., 961.

  208 “About America I think”: Emma Darwin to J. D. Hooker, December 26, 1863, Darwin Correspondence Project, accessed online.

  209 “calm and dispassionate Mr. Olmsted”: Fraser’s, February 1862.

  209 Mercury was used: Discussion of mercury drawn largely from interview, JM with Terry Reimer, director of research, National Museum of Civil War Medicine, May 7, 2009.

  209 “I itched furiously”: FLO to MPO, August 30, 1862.

  210 “He has said, of course”: FLO to MPO, September 15, 1862.

  Chapter 17: Antiet
am to Gettysburg

  211 this odor would be remembered: Battle of Antietam: Carnage in a Cornfield, HistoryNet. com.

  212 red-and-white USSC flag: William Maxwell, Lincoln’s Fifth Wheel: The Political History of the U.S. Sanitary Commission (New York: Longmans, Green, 1956), 273.

  212 “Most of our ladies”: Henry Bellows to Mrs. R. Swain, November 13, 1862.

  212 “I have addressed large”: Horace Howard Furnace to FLO, June 8, 1863.

  213 at Antietam a full day: FLO to MPO, September 21, 1862.

  213 According to its records: Charles Stillé, History of the United States Sanitary Commission (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1866), 267.

  213 “It was very squalid”: FLO to MPO, September 29, 1862.

  214 “The Proclamation of Emancipation”: New York Times, September 28, 1862.

  214 “I shall stand by it”: FLO to Charles Stillé, February 23, 1863.

  214 “Each would then become”: FLO to John Nicolay, October 10, 1862.

  214 “You are too near the machinery”: George Curtis to FLO, September 29, 1862, letter reprinted in Laura Wood Roper, FLO: A Biography of Frederick Law Olmsted (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 212.

  214 “Kiss all the young ones”: FLO to MPO, September 29, 1862.

  215 “Thank you for encouraging”: FLO to MPO, October 11, 1862.

  215 “We will be as frugal”: Ibid.

  215 “It is a day for heroes”: Ibid.

  216 “You understand . . . the glorious”: Bellows to John Heywood, March 10, 1863.

  217 “a friendly feeling amongst”: FLO to Bellows, February 4, 1863, reprinted in Papers , 4:512.

  218 “peculiar zest”: FLO to JO, April 1, 1863.

  218 “I am not always”: Ibid.

  219 Carl is a play on carl: Papers, 4:529.

  219 “What else is necessary”: FLO’s diary, “A Journey in the West,” reprinted in Papers , 4:527.

  219 “It seems useless to describe Chicago”: Ibid., 591.

  220 briefly occupied Frederick: Stillé, History of the United States Sanitary Commission , 376–377.

  220 steady stream of wagons: New York Times, July 16, 1863.

  220 a pair of supply wagons: New York Times, July 31, 1863.

  220 “Thank God!”: Ibid.

  221 “Private advices tend”: George Templeton Strong, Diary of the Civil War, 1860–1865 (New York: Macmillan, 1962), 329.

  221 “Olmsted is wary, shrewd”: Ibid.

  221 During the week: Tally of relief items provided at Gettysburg drawn from New York Times, July 31, 1863.

  222 “evidence of terrible fighting”: FLO to Edwin Godkin, July 19, 1863, reprinted in Papers, 4:658.

  222 Particularly touching, to Olmsted: Ibid.

  Chapter 18: “The Country Cannot Spare You”

  223 “beastly drunkenness”: Cornelius Agnew to FLO, April 24, 1863.

  224 “I chafe and fume”: FLO to Henry Bellows, July 28, 1863, reprinted in Papers, 4:681.

  224 “He is an extraordinary fellow”: George Templeton Strong, Diary of the Civil War, 1860–1865 (New York: Macmillan, 1962), 304–305.

  224 “Olmsted is in an unhappy”: Ibid., 183.

  225 principles of management: FLO to JO, April 25, 1863.

  225 “However wanting in sagacity”: FLO to JO, May 2, 1863.

  225 Comment, Reviser, Scrutiny: List of potential names drawn from FLO to Edwin Godkin, July 19, 1863, reprinted in Papers, 4:658, and FLO to MPO, July 2, 1863.

  226 “I don’t believe it will succeed”: Charles Dana quoted in FLO to Edwin Godkin, August 7, 1863.

  226 “You are less rooted”: Dana to FLO, August 7, 1863.

  227 “absolute poverty”: FLO to Bellows, August 15, 1863, reprinted in Papers, 4:692.

  227 “The country can not spare you”: Bellows to FLO, August 13, 1863, reprinted in Papers, 4:702.

  227 estimated $15 million: Charles Stillé, History of the United States Sanitary Commission (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1866), 173.

  228 1,482 camp inspections: William Maxwell, Lincoln’s Fifth Wheel: The Political History of the U.S. Sanitary Commission (New York: Longmans, Green, 1956), 310.

  228 137,000 beds: George Adams, “Fighting for Time,” in The Image of War, 1861–1865, vol. 4 (Washington, DC: National Historical Society, 1957).

  228 “inestimable blessings and benefits”: Stillé, History of the United States Sanitary Commission, 180–181.

  229 “mid-wife to the Red Cross”: Maxwell, Lincoln’s Fifth Wheel, 276.

  Chapter 19: Gold Dust

  232 “perhaps the finest mining”: Horace Greeley, An Overland Journey, from New York to San Francisco (New York: C. A. Avord, 1860), 319.

  232 The 44,387 acres: The Mariposa Company, prospectus, 3.

  233 “Why, when I came to California”: Samuel Bowles, Across the Continent: A Summer’s Journey to the Rocky Mountains, the Mormons, and the Pacific States (Springfield, MA: Samuel Bowles, 1865), 312.

  233 “There seems to be no limit”: The Mariposa Company, prospectus, 67.

  233 $10,000 salary in gold: Details of Olmsted’s compensation drawn from FLO to JO, August 10, 1863, and The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, vol. 5, The California Frontier (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 6.

  234 “The steamer on the Atlantic”: FLO’s travel journal, New York to San Francisco, reprinted in Papers, 5:72.

  235 “makes all our model scenery”: FLO to MPO, September 25, 1863.

  235 “Remember to point out”: Ibid.

  235 “It’s Fifth Avenue”: Ibid.

  236 “would under favorable natural”: FLO to Ignaz Pilat, September 26, 1863, reprinted in FLO Jr. and Theodora Kimball, eds., Forty Years of Landscape Architecture , vol. 2 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1922), 347.

  236 “a dead flat, dead brown”: FLO to MPO, October 14, 1863.

  237 Olmsted checked into Oso House: Description of Oso House and many Bear Valley details drawn from FLO to MPO, October 14, 1863, and FLO to JO, February 14, 1864.

  238 Mariposa was a high-tech operation: Description of mines drawn partly from FLO to JO, February 11, 1864, and interview on October 22, 2009, JM with Randy Bolt, historical guide for California state parks.

  238 profit of $50,000 per month: Official Report of J. Ross Browne, U.S. Commissioner, & c., upon the Mineral Resources of the Mariposa Estate, 7.

  238 “These facts, all new”: FLO to James Hoy, October 19, 1863.

  239 “Things are worse here”: FLO to MPO, October 31, 1863.

  239 “I can make nothing”: FLO to Frederick Knapp, November 21, 1863.

  240 California, he was certain: FLO to MPO, October 15, 1863.

  240 “Evening services”: Ibid.

  240 a recurring dream: Harriet Errington Diary, March 17, 1864, entry, Loeb Library.

  241 “I think something”: FLO to Frederick Knapp, November 21, 1863.

  241 “My special object”: Vaux to FLO, October 19, 1863, reprinted in Papers, 5:114.

  242 “superior education in certain directions”: FLO to Vaux, November 26, 1863.

  243 “helps to strengthen”: FLO to JO, January 1, 1864.

  243 “Think of it as 13 times”: FLO to MPO, October 15, 1863.

  Chapter 20: Yosemite

  244 “He (Fremont) seems”: FLO to JO, October 30, 1863.

  244 Grass Valley section: Contrast with Grass Valley provided during interview, on October 22, 2009, JM with Randy Bolt, historical guide for California state parks.

  245 Olmsted cut the miners’ wages: FLO to George Farlee, March 1, 1864.

  245 “They hate regularity”: FLO to James Hoy, March 2, 1864.

  245 Israel Raymond sent a letter: Israel Raymond to John Conness, February 20, 1864, reprinted in Hans Huth, “Yosemite: The Story of an Idea.”

  247 “I know what stage say”: FLO Jr. interview by Laura Wood Roper, Library of Congress.

  247 “I was very busy sewing”: JCO’s Mariposa Journa
l, June 30, 1864, Loeb Library.

  247 “Marion House”: Francis Kowsky, Country, Park, and City: The Architecture and Life of Calvert Vaux (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 163.

  248 On March 25, 1851: Details of Yosemite in the 1850s partly drawn from Ralph Kuykendall, Early History of Yosemite Valley, California (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1919).

  249 Carleton Watkins: Details about photographer drawn partly from “Carleton E. Watkins, Pioneer Photographer of the Pacific Coast,” Yosemite Nature Notes (April 1953).

  249 “Seven Weeks in the Great Yo-Semite”: Atlantic, June 1864.

  249 Indians began to gather: Details of Miwok gathering from FLO, “Notes on the Pioneer Condition,” reprinted in Papers, 5:649–650.

  250 “probably the noblest tree”: FLO, “Yosemite and the Mariposa Grove: A Preliminary Report, 1865,” accessed online at http://yosemite.ca.us.

  250 “Previous expectations—photographs, sketches”: FLO, “Plan of Narrative for Clarks & Yo Semite, & c,” July 30, 1864.

  251 “The union of the deepest sublimity”: FLO, “Yosemite and the Mariposa Grove.”

  252 As for choosing the committee: “The Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Big Trees,” introductory note by Laura Wood Roper, Landscape Architecture, October 1952.

  252 “There should be no”: FLO to Clarence King, October 23, 1864.

  252 Recently, he had sold a block: Papers, 5:307.

  252 He was alarmed by how quickly: FLO to JO, October 30, 1863.

  Chapter 21: Un settled in the West

  255 “The highlight of the trial”: New York Times, December 22, 1864.

  255 “Was any unfair advantage”: Ibid.

  255 “I-I-I think not”: Account of stammering and its impact from Allan Nevins, Frémont: The West’s Greatest Adventurer, vol. 2 (New York: Harper and Bros., 1928), 670.

  255 traded as high as $45: New York Times, January 25, 1865.

  256 the first Olmsted heard of the Opdyke-Weed libel trial: FLO to Edwin Godkin, January 9, 1865, reprinted in Papers, 5:292.

  256 Olmsted gathered up $4,000: Ibid.

  256 Olmsted had sold much of his stock: Papers, 5:307.