When the time came for Charley to graduate, he was near the top of his class. In fact, only his inability to master Hebrew kept him from achieving the top rank. The young man rose to deliver his commencement oration on September 25, 1833. It was customary for select graduating seniors to give a brief address on a topic of their choosing. This particular student stood out among his twenty peers. Over six feet tall, with reddish-blonde hair, a prominent nose, and a booming voice that belied his nineteen years, the popular youth had a magnetic stage presence. He was not bound for the ministry, where half of his classmates would end up. While all the student speeches were serious, Charley’s effort was particularly earnest.
As Charley announced the title of his address—“An Oration on the Influence of Monumental Records upon National Morals”—his friends may have cringed. The young graduate began by claiming that “the commemoration of illustrious individuals and events has ever been the delight and glory of past ages.” He maintained that every soul “burns for immortality” and that “marble is made to speak lessons of piety, patriotism and philanthropy.” Honoring the patriots that built this great nation, Anderson argued, is as noble and virtuous as the biblical admonition to honor one’s father and mother. Such monuments promote a “national morality.” In the America of 1833, he asserted, the young country’s greatest hero had no lasting memorial to glorify his past deeds and instruct future generations. His speech was a plea for the creation of the Washington Monument. The young baccalaureate extolled “the obelisks of fallen Egypt” and suggested that the memorial be “simple, towering, sublime,” bearing Washington’s name aloft, “bright with the beams of immortal glory.” How did this mere lad foresee the precise aspect of an iconic shrine that was yet to be designed and would not stand complete for another fifty years? The answer lies in Charles Anderson’s family history.5
By the time young Anderson graduated from college, John Marshall had been chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court for more than three decades. It was Marshall who first organized and chaired the Washington National Monument Society just weeks before the Miami University graduation festivities. Charles must have thought it his patriotic duty to help “Uncle John” spread the word and raise money for the project. At least one member of the audience at the Miami University commencement ceremonies listened to Anderson’s oration with rapt attention. Sixteen-year-old Eliza Jane Brown would later say that she fell in love with Charles that very day. He dedicated his speech to her, and they would share the marital bed for sixty years.
There was another woman who, despite Eliza’s sacrifices and devotion, would hold the preeminent place in her future husband’s heart. Lady Liberty was Charles’s first and most ardent love. He was betrothed to her by his father’s legacy. He would never abandon her at any cost. Anderson’s graduation speech may have been dedicated to Eliza, but it was really a solemn oath to Union and country and set the course for the rest of his eventful life. The young man with so much potential ignored his guardian Larz’s advice to prepare for the ministry. Larz had found that religion soothed the heartache of his wife’s untimely death and made a declaration of faith. Charles had other plans: he had been devising a business partnership by correspondence with his brother Robert, who by now was seriously considering retirement from the military and getting back to farming. Charles yearned to return to the rural life of his boyhood. The root of his desire ran all the way back to his earliest memories.
When Colonel Anderson’s youngest son was only three years old, his sister Maria presented him with three unusual gifts: an almond, a pecan, and a dinner knife. Charles was to plant the nuts and grow his own trees, which might someday bear the fruit of his juvenile efforts. He did as he was instructed and the little seedlings grew for about four years, until a particularly hard winter killed the almond. The pecan tree, on the other hand, would outlive the boy. Charles later recalled this feat with some irony, as his “sole great success in life’s works.” The toddler arborist often heard his father speak of his lands on the Ohio River opposite the Wabash, which included a huge island full of ancient pecans. Repeated begging led Colonel Anderson to deed the land to his youngest son. Charles dreamed that one day he would build his own bucolic country seat on that very spot. He convinced his brother Robert to join him in the venture. In October 1833, not long after graduation, Charles boarded a steamboat and headed for Wabash Island. There he found a former Shawnee town with huge tree stumps remnant of an urgent contest to clear the land. Fever raged in this remote outpost. There were no schools, no churches, and no polite society of any kind. When Charles reached the tract that he owned, he discovered that a tornado had recently cut a mile-wide swath directly through the property. The pecan trees, along with his childhood dreams, were obliterated.
Undaunted, Charles and Robert purchased a farm on Gravois Creek, near Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, in 1834. That effort also ended in failure. As Charles was preparing to leave, an old man advised him to return to Louisville and become a lawyer. It was clear to the aged stranger that Charles Anderson “was no farmer.” Charles took the old man’s advice and headed to Louisville, where he studied the law and joined Larz’s firm, Pirtle and Anderson.
Robert accepted an appointment as instructor of artillery at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He had made many important connections there while he was a student. In the Black Hawk War, Robert had mustered Abraham Lincoln in and out of service. Winfield Scott had become Robert’s loyal champion and closest friend. Mississippi native Jefferson Davis (the future president of the Confederacy) had served as Robert’s aide. William T. Sherman had been Robert’s junior first lieutenant when they were both stationed in South Carolina. Robert’s friends became Charles’s friends. The brothers were that close. Some of these connections proved valuable as Charles’s life progressed.6
Jefferson Davis and young Charley shared more than mutual admiration for Robert’s character and abilities. They also shared a sweetheart. As a boy on the Bear Grass, Charley’s playmate from early childhood (and his first crush) was Sarah Knox Taylor. She was the daughter of career military officer, Louisville resident and future U.S. president Zachary Taylor. It was an innocent tryst that existed more in Charley’s imagination than in reality. When the dashing young Lieutenant Davis met sixteen-year-old Sarah at Fort Crawford in Wisconsin territory, sparks flew. It took nearly four years for Davis to convince Zachary Taylor to allow Davis to marry his daughter.
In the meantime, Davis took every opportunity to rendezvous with his secret fiancé. One such opportunity came with the marriage of Charley’s cousin Anne Bullitt and Major Thomas L. Alexander in 1833. Charley was visiting his cousin Mary, the wife of General Henry Atkinson, at Jefferson Barracks when he attended an “infair,” a wedding reception in honor of the newlyweds. He had met Davis on several occasions. Charley’s customary room at headquarters was occupied by other Louisville guests, so Lieutenant Davis invited the young man to room with him at his quarters across the parade ground. While Charley sat in the general’s headquarters the next day, Lieutenant Colonel Stephen W. Kearney of the First Dragoons entered and asked to speak to the general on urgent business. Kearny pleaded with Atkinson to help persuade Colonel Taylor to allow Davis to marry Sarah Taylor. It was an awkward moment for the nineteen-year-old Charley Anderson, as he was compelled to listen to the man urge a marriage between his “best friend” Sarah and his “then bed-fellow” Davis. When the two lovebirds finally tied the knot in 1835, Charley was in attendance. The new bride died of malaria just three months later. Davis was a changed man. The twenty-five-year-old officer whom Anderson later described as “witty,” “sportful,” and “captivating” became a “sober, grave, philosopher-thinker.”7
Yellow fever had nearly claimed the life of Charley’s brother Marshall the year before, during a visit to Robert Anderson’s post at Baton Rouge. A friend of the family convinced Marshall that upon his recovery, a trip to the Oregon Country might help to restore his heal
th. It seemed like a rather rash remedy, given that the route Lewis and Clark had taken just thirty years before was rarely traveled by anyone other than fur traders and mountain men. The daring trip, later published in diary form, kindled a spirit of adventure in William Marshall Anderson that would never be extinguished. Marshall returned to Ohio in 1835, married the daughter of former Ohio governor Duncan McArthur, and settled into a legal career. Like his youngest brother, Charley, Marshall loved learning more than working and became a renowned archeologist. His valuable collection of Indian tools and artifacts from the burial mounds of Ohio were later donated to the Smithsonian Institution.8
Charles Anderson became someone different from each of his accomplished older brothers. Richard Jr. was the enshrined model and facsimile of their father—the beau ideal of a son. Larz represented industry and achievement and was the most respected brother of the clan. Robert represented faith, constancy, and duty, achieving lasting fame for his lifetime of sacrifice in the service of his country. Marshall was most like his youngest brother in his interests and independent temperament. These traits eventually cleaved huge divisions in the family over faith and politics. In the end, however, brotherly love prevailed over seemingly irreparable differences. With the support of these mentors, Charles prepared to enter the real world and face his own great challenges.
His chosen partner on this lifelong journey was the sister of two of his Oxford roommates. Eliza Jane Brown was still finishing high school when she and Charles pledged their troths to each other. They married in 1835 after a two-year engagement. The young couple settled in Dayton, where her Patterson ancestors had founded a prosperous and growing community. Eliza was an educated woman, a loving companion, and a dutiful, traditional wife. Anderson’s ego required a partner and a helpmate, not someone who would oppose or challenge him. Their first son arrived the following year, and they named him Allen Latham in honor of Anderson’s brother-in-law. Like his brothers, Charles pursued a career in the law. It was not his first choice, nor his calling in life, but he had a family to support and his first duty was to them.
CHAPTER FOUR
Devilish Whispers
LARZ ANDERSON WAS TROUBLED by what he had observed over the previous five years. Since graduating from college, his youngest brother appeared to be wasting his talents and squandering a promising legal career. Despite the rare advantages of a first-rate classical education, superior intelligence, and the fine examples set by his older brothers, Charles Anderson lacked diligence and commitment. By December 1840, Larz could no longer stifle his opinion. He sent his little brother a long letter with a decidedly parental tone. He suggested that Charles read a short essay by the English Baptist minister John Foster titled “Decision of Character.” It was intended to be a wake-up call to the young attorney. Charles had, by his own admission, accomplished nothing since he married and embarked on his chosen profession. Perhaps he had forgotten his father’s favorite maxim, Larz suggested, “that whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.”1
According to his older brother, Charles spent most of his time “discoursing and castle-building,” instead of applying himself in earnest. He was living beyond his means and constantly in debt. Neglecting his practice with no plans for alternative employment amounted to a disservice to his family, his community, and his legacy. It was high time for Larz’s little brother to stop daydreaming and to get serious about a career. Larz knew that his brother harbored regrets about his short-lived experiment at farming. If Charles really examined his conscience, Larz insisted, he would find that agriculture lacked the excitement and social interaction that he sorely needed. Politics was an enduring interest of men in the legal profession, and Charles often wondered if that was his true calling. Larz dismissed the idea. Charles disliked law because he hated the “low acts” that attorneys often resorted to in order to win cases. How then, Larz asked, could Charles possibly stomach “the paltry means, the vile intrigues, the hypocrisy” of the politician? The elder brother had considerable experience in both realms. One could be successful in law without sinking to such levels, Larz reasoned, but “it is next to impossible for the politician to preserve himself pure, amid the despicable shifts and maneuvers” that elected officials subject themselves to. “Put it down as certain,” Larz advised, “that you can never be a politician.”
Larz urged his former ward to do something. “I want a purpose, an end, a plan,” he pleaded. The plan itself was not nearly as important as the effort and perseverance behind it. Larz could set Charles up in Cincinnati, or across the river in Covington, Kentucky, where the prospects for financial success were good, if Charles could “exorcise the demon of Politics.” But Charles was firmly rooted in Dayton, where Eliza’s family property offered at least a small measure of security in their uncertain financial situation. As for the devil on Charles’s shoulder, he found that it kept whispering sweet entreaties into his ear until he could no longer ignore the temptation.
It was his fellow citizens, rather than Satan himself, who demanded that Charles Anderson become a public figure. From the beginning of his time in Dayton, he had been actively involved in community affairs. This was expected of a man of his education and talents. It was also a virtue that his father had stressed and his siblings honored. Charles served a term as clerk of Dayton Township, an office he took on in order to help implement a new common school law. He commanded the local militia, called the “Dayton Grays,” until his paid work made holding that position impossible. A year after receiving Larz’s admonishing letter, Charles succumbed to peer pressure and agreed to run for the office of Montgomery County prosecuting attorney. “Tomorrow I begin one of the most disagreeable tasks of my life,” he wrote to his sister Maria in September 1841. His opponent in the race was an old mentor and friend, Judge George B. Holt. Charles defeated the judge but, like many former and future adversaries, retained the friendship for the rest of Holt’s life.2
Despite Charles’s foray into elective office, Larz was not overly perturbed. His brother’s star was rising in legal circles and the newfound recognition led to a partnership with successful Dayton attorney John Howard. The new partners were a good match. Howard was one of the most successful practitioners at the Dayton bar. He was bright, extremely well-read, and possessed a tireless work ethic. He overcame a slow, awkward manner of speaking by connecting in an intimate and folksy way with the jury. In many ways, Howard and Charles made an ideal team. Clients calling on Anderson often found him absent, as he preferred to sit on the river bank and fish or tend to his small farm, rather than endure the tedium of office work. But Charles was magic in front of a jury. The same star qualities that made him so persuasive in arguing cases before his peers made him attractive to political operatives.3
Charles Anderson was a prototype leader. Tall, handsome, and articulate, with an engaging personality and a quick wit, he was as effective in intimate gatherings as he was impressive on the podium. Anderson was a man of learning and ideas and was not shy to offer an opinion or take a stand on an issue. He was a public-spirited citizen whose heart was unquestionably committed to his neighbors and his countrymen. A man like him did not need to seek office. Such actions were considered crass and vulgar to a gentleman’s sensibilities. Rather, the opportunities came to him. Much to Larz’s dismay, when Charles was called to serve, he rarely resisted.
The seed of Charles Anderson’s political interest had been germinating since childhood. Like his brother John, the visit of Andrew Jackson to Soldier’s Retreat when the boys were mere tots made him an early disciple of Old Hickory. That all changed one summer day when the fifteen-year-old Charles was in Cincinnati visiting Larz. His brother brought the college-bound boy to hear a political speech by a fellow Kentuckian and fierce opponent of Jackson. Charles was captivated by both the man and his message. After the speech, he had the opportunity to shake the hand of Henry Clay. At that moment, Charles Anderson became a party man and one of the region’s most ardent followers of W
hig principles. He followed Clay and his party faithfully until his death.4
By 1829, Clay was a titan on the American political scene. His work on the Missouri Compromise was critical in keeping the Union together. The North and South had grown increasingly belligerent over such issues as banking, tariffs, and slavery. Clay had run for president twice and did not win his party’s nomination on either occasion. When the opportunity came to help Clay win the presidency as the Whig nominee in the summer of 1844, Anderson took down his shingle and became a full-time politician. It turned out to be a short career.5
Usually a key battleground state in national elections, Ohio was no exception in the contest of 1844. Determined to help Ohio fulfill what they felt was its political destiny as kingmaker, the state Whig machine trotted out an impressive ticket of candidates for the legislature and statewide office. Their mission, in addition to reversing recent Democratic Party gains, was to ensure that Clay carried Ohio. Voting a straight-line party ticket was encouraged in these days. Local candidates often made the difference in the decision to vote for a presidential hopeful whom very few had seen or heard. When Whigs in Montgomery and Warren Counties nominated Anderson for the state senate, they knew that they were securing a devoted and effective spokesman for Clay. The previous year, Anderson had lost his bid for the Whig nomination to the U.S. House of Representatives to his good friend Robert C. Schenck. This time, however, he did not disappoint.
The Lost Gettysburg Address Page 4